


Wayward Strays

by Kaiisan



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Animal Shelter, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Animal Shelter AU, Attempt at Humor, Descriptions of a car accident in chapter 1, Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Lance's fam take in fosters, Lance's family owns an Animal Shelter, M/M, Short term memory loss, keith is a foster kid, slight trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-02-25 19:52:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13220019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaiisan/pseuds/Kaiisan
Summary: Lance was used to coming home to find all sorts of new additions to his family, be it a cat, dog, chicken or the occasional new human sibling. But coming home to Keith Kogane on his doorstep was one stray too many.My submission for the Dragon Klance Bang 2017 thing!!Art belongs tonikkst3rz!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey Guys!!! I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while but this is the project I've been working on! I'm excited to share it with you guys!!
> 
> Please enjoy!!

_“Keith, we really should be taking the quickest route home.”_

_“And we will be, especially if we race.”_

_“There’s a lot of traffic on the roads at this time of night, and -”_

_“What’s the matter Shiro? Scared your winning streak is finally going to end?”_

_“Seriously, Keith, it’s been raining, not tonight.”_

_“I’ll slow down if you catch me!”_

_“Keith, no-!”_

_He doesn’t catch the rest of what Shiro says as he speeds off on his bike, ducking and weaving between the heavy onslaught of vehicles in both directions. The telltale roar of Shiro’s motorbike behind him makes him grin and speed up more, and the thrill of the chase blots out the noises and lights around him as he takes sharp turns and glides over the roads at dangerously close yellow lights. The wind cuts deep into his leather gloves and jacket and he can feel the wisps of the hair under his helmet billow and he laughs as his brother finally catches up to him with a short beep and overtaking him at the next junction. He needed this. Needed this bit of fun to take his mind off of things. The race is nearly over, he thinks, just a few more blocks until they reach the residential area where they live and they can slow down, but Keith desperately wants to be first this time, and he speeds up close, way closer than normal to Shiro’s bike, coming up on his left hand side. He’s so close he can almost touch him, and he lets go of one of the handles to do just that, indicating to Shiro to give him a high-five whilst driving. Shiro shakes his head, but where’s the fun in that? Keith leans in closer, only the bike starts to tip and he has to correct himself sharply if he doesn’t want to hit anything. Shiro pulls away to give him some space, and it’s in that moment of panic and sharp relief between them that everything goes to hell._

_Suddenly, Shiro isn’t beside him anymore._

_Suddenly a chorus of honking and screeching tires is all he can hear of the traffic._

_The distinct, terrifying sounds of a bike being hit by a car is all too real and delayed in Keith’s mind as his bike finally slips on the wet tarmac and his body goes rolling across the ground._

_There aren’t any cars around him when he feels ready to sit up, and when he does he can see why: the traffic is at a standstill behind a crushed motorbike, several wrecked cars and people yelling over a body on the floor._

_The sirens ring in his ears for hours after that._

* * *

(Several Days Later)

 

Lance leaves his last class for the day feeling odd, a sensation that has been growing steadily over the past few days. There is something missing, he thinks, though he can't place what it is exactly. Maybe a couple students missing? The classes felt a lot smaller today, but that isn't unusual. Hunk doesn't seem to think anything is wrong either when he voices his feelings as they walk out into the parking lot.

"I'm usually the one with the gut feelings," Hunk jokes, patting his back with a grin. "I'm sure everything is fine, dude."

"Yeah, you're probably right buddy." Lance smiles and rolls his shoulders, and once they're halfway through the lot they part ways to their individual cars and head home. Lance drives for a long time, through the busy town streets and out to the country lanes that take him home. When the sign for his home approaches, he takes the turn and rolls up to the small collection of buildings that make up his childhood, his home and his workplace all in one.

The thing is, when your family runs a shelter and a farm at once, like Lance's family does, you can expect to see a lot of strays. So while Lance is used to coming home to find all sorts of new additions to his family, be it a cat, dog, chicken or the occasional new human sibling, he is not expecting this. Coming home to Keith Kogane on his doorstep is one stray too many.

 

"Hey," he calls out after parking. The familiar mop of dark black hair is unforgettable; and suddenly it clicks that he hasn't seen Keith in any of their classes for a while. The slim figure turns as he stomps up towards him, and as he gets closer he can see the dishevelled state of the other teen's clothing, as well as the two worn duffel bags on the bench by the door, and he climbs up the porch steps to come face-to-face with a scowl and a wary posed wreck.

"How do you know where I live?"

The first thing he blurts out isn't exactly what he wanted to say, but it's what he’d been thinking, and there's no taking it back, after all, so he goes with it. He hasn’t spoken to Keith in so long that it almost feels unnatural at this point.

Keith raises a brow. "I didn't. I was just dropped off here by the child protection services."

That raises several more concerned flags and curious questions for Lance, but before he can ask another one the door beside him swings open and he startles as his mum rushes out.

"Lance! You're finally home; help Keith get his things into the spare room. I'll be with you in a second."

She rushes past them again with a hum, phone tucked back into her ear as she talks to whichever client about a dog in their shelter they were interested in as she heads back into the house.

Lance glances between her disappearing back and the ragged state Keith is in, namely as worn out as the patchy rags he was wearing, and shrugs.

"You know what, I'm not gonna ask," he sighs out to no-one in particular and grabs one of the surprisingly heavy bags.

"That's it?" Keith mutters, and Lance glances back at him questioningly. "You barely know me but you're just letting me in?"

"Well for a start, I kinda have to," Lance points out. "You said you were dropped here by CPS right?" Keith nods slowly. "Then that means you're in Mam's care now, so you're not going anywhere for awhile at least. Plus, she literally just gave the orders to help you out." Lance tries a supportive smile. "Welcome to the fam, Keithy-kins."

Keith scowls. "I'm not here because I want to be. Don't drag me into your weird family ideals, idiot."

Lance blinks at the venom in the other boy's words, and the shock keeps him silent for a moment, but his anger bubbles up soon after. How dare he? Whatever problems he has with Lance, he can take it out on him, not his siblings. Not his family. The brunet sees red and he takes a quick step into Keith's personal space. It cuts the other boy’s glower off pretty quick as he hisses, "Don't you dare say anything about my family, Mullet. Like it or not you're under our roof now and I ain't takin’ no shit from you, understand?"

His height is his advantage and those meagre inches he has over him wins him the glaring contest as Keith shrugs sullenly and looks away. He takes his silence as an agreement to keep his opinions to himself and Lance begins to lead the silent guest up to the spare bedroom. The old farmhouse that made their home is fairly large, and nicely remodelled on the inside to keep up with the modern times, and though their family is large itself they have plenty of space for occasional guests like Keith. Keith's room is sparsely decorated; plain white sheets on the bed and simple quilts and duvet covers, with cream walls and matching curtains. The carpet is dark to cover any possible stains and the desk is dark mahogany like the wardrobe and bed frame; all in all the room is spacious for one person and thankfully Keith keeps his comments to himself as he looks around.

"This'll be your room while you're here," Lance sighs quietly. "Mine's the room farthest down the hall on the left, the bathroom is the door in between this room and mine. Molly and Alex's room are the doors on the other side of the hall. Lucas and Lucy have the attic rooms on the floor above, and the parents have the en-suite at the back of the house on the bottom floor. You'll get all the rooms figured out quickly, there's nameplates on the doors and stuff."

Keith grunts noncommittally and throws his bags down beside the one Lance had set on the bed, and starts unpacking a sleek black laptop from his backpack.

"I'm gonna... do some work." He says eventually, glancing up at Lance through his long fringe. “Do you mind?”

He wants Lance to leave, he supposes.

“...Alright then.” Lance begins to back out of the room. “Mam will be by later to update you on like, house rules and stuff, and dinner’s at 7… see ya later?”

“Mhmm,” Keith doesn’t even glance at him this time, instead focusing on plugging the laptop in and setting it up at the desk.

His role done, Lance shuts the door after him with a confused release of breath, and picks up the dangling chalk hanging from the door’s chalkboard, scribbling _‘Keith’_ in slanted text on the slate. This is as welcoming as he was going to be though, and when he heads back downstairs to pick his things up from his car, he beelines to his mum instead.

“Mam, what the hell!?” He whispers urgently, rounding the kitchen’s island counter and grabbing his mother’s arms gently. “Why is he here?!”

“Who, Keith?” His mother hums, unperturbed by Lance’s dramatics.

“No, Toby the cat.” Lance rolls his eyes. “Of course Keith!”

“How else do kids turn up in this house, sweetie?” Lance’s mother smiles at him sadly. “Through unfortunate circumstances, Keith was involved in an accident and had to be relocated almost immediately. Don’t go picking any fights with him, okay? He’s got nowhere else right now.”

“Where’s his family…?” Lance trails off quietly. “Where are the people who were fostering him before?”

“Out of the country.” She replies, equally quiet. “They had to fly their other son to the States for treatment.”

Oh.

Keith’s ragged state suddenly made a lot more sense.

“I’m serious, Lance.” His mother, the wonderful foster parent that she is, hugs him gently. “He’s in a rough mindset. Kindness is your best feature; let’s show him that, shall we?”

“Yes Mam.”

 

Later, after he’d helped out in the shelter, around the house and had his turn in the shower, Lance lays flat on his bed and contemplates the situation that he knows of so far.

One: Keith Kogane, famous top-notch college student in his year group, is also a foster kid like himself.

Two: Keith has a brother, and the two of them had had an accident. Only his brother seems to have been seriously injured.

Three: it’d been a big enough injury to warrant the family temporarily moving their whole lives to the States for the treatment.

Four: they didn’t take Keith with them.

 

Why the hell was that?

 

Well, Lance knew from his own experience that foster parents can be really shitty. He went through a few bad ones himself before Mam. But he couldn’t imagine for the life of him grown up adults dropping a kid immediately before leaving the country with their other kid? It’s insane. Why not just take him with them?

There were so many questions that were going to plague him while Keith stays here, he only hopes he can keep his mouth shut.

The call for dinner happens soon after he collects his thoughts, and on his way down he catches Keith outside his door. The teen looks even more ragged in his flannel bottoms and large sweater, but he scowls at Lance fiercely, daring him to say anything. Lance keeps silent.

At the dining table, introductions are made. Mam, otherwise known as Julia Rivera, heads the table and sets about passing out all the vegetables and gravy for everyone to load on their plates. Mateo Rivera, her husband, carves up the roast for everyone to help themselves to. Sat opposite him on Mam’s other side is the oldest son, Lucas, who is twenty-four, and his twin sister Lucy sat chatting away on his other side. Lance sat on his father’s other side, and Keith next to him, leaving the other end of the table for fourteen-year-old Alexander and the remaining seat next to Lucy to eight-year-old Molly-Rose. Despite the table being chaotic and its usual mess, everyone makes sure to welcome Keith to the dinner table, and Lance watches as the raven-haired teen forces a half-smile and thanks as he heaps pitifully small portions of everything onto his plate.

"You're not gonna get away with eating just that," Lance murmurs. "Eat as much as you want, dude."

Keith scowls at him, though his eyes flicker to the younger kids at the table and he keeps his mouth shut. After a beat, he whispers back. "I don't want more than this, okay? Buzz off."

Lance snorts, and ignores the scowling boy's glares in favour of downing his food.

It seems as though the only thing Keith is capable of doing in abundance at the moment is scowling, glaring and muttering vague answers when spoken to. The others give up on getting him to open up after the first few one-word answers.

The only thing that seems to have made Keith relax at the table was Mam. It’s impossible to argue with her warmth and abundance of affection, and her welcoming presence in almost every conversation keeps Lance grounded instead of slowly becoming riled up by Keith’s quiet form next to him. He feels an odd sort of tension; not entirely misplaced due to his feelings for the guy, and he thinks he should feel awkward too considering that, but more to the point his concern for the dude overrules everything else he can think of right now.

Keith looks at Mam with soft uncertainty whenever Lance's eyes catch sight of him. There's so much going on in that clouded expression that Lance doesn't think he'll ever figure out, especially considering their history.

After dinner, the luck of the draw has Alex helping clean the dishes and the rest of the household go about their business. The twins head back outside to lock up the poultry and other farm animals for the night, and Molly unpacks her homework at the table to work on. Keith thanks Mam for the food and makes a beeline for the stairs quickly. Lance follows just as fast.

"Hey, hey Keith!"

"What!" Keith snaps quietly. He's not quite angry, but a little on edge.

"Do you..." Lance trails off, wondering how to word things. "Do you remember me at all? From the thing a couple months ago, before Christmas?"

Keith frowns at him, and for a moment Lance is going to get told to piss off, but the raven-haired teen seems to try and think his words over for a moment.

"I know... we were sat near each other?" He manages, tone more of a question than a statement.

"I sat in the row behind you." Lance nods; this was good, getting somewhere. "We used to pass notes for a bit."

_I used to try flirting with you._

"Right." Keith's brow furrows a little more. "I'm sorry... I don't- I'm not... good at remembering things right now."

"Oh." Lance mind helpfully adds, "the accident, right?"

Keith pales, lips pulling taut and suddenly he looks like he might be sick.

Eyes wide, Lance tries to fix himself, "Shit, I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"

"I hit my head." Keith says quietly. "Short term memory loss. Anything in the past year or so is a little fuzzy. I don't really remember you, I'm sorry."

_He doesn’t remember._

_He doesn’t remember all the time I spent flirting with him, making him laugh._

_He doesn’t remember breaking my heart into a whole bunch of pieces._

Lance takes a deep breath, looking down at his shoes, and his eyes catch sight of the other boy's shaking fists, clenching and relaxing in tight rhythm.

"It's fine." He holds out his hand, startling them both. "Let's restart. Lance Rivera, 18, I go to the same college as you. We share an Advanced Mathematics class, and a Photography class, and have the same lunch hour. We don't sit near each other anymore though, so we haven't spoken really since... back then."

Keith looks at him curiously at that last part. Lance can't really look him in the eye, but he doesn't lower his hand.

Keith takes it, hesitantly and with surprising gentleness.

"Keith Kogane. 18, and you probably don't want to know a lot about me."

Lance raises a brow, and Keith manages to do the same.

"I think I'll decide that myself, McMullet."

Keith smirks so briefly, Lance nearly imagines it. But then it disappears as a sadness sweeps over his features.

"Thanks but... I think I'm better keeping my distance for now. I'm... I'm gonna go to bed early. See you around."

"G'night.." Lance murmurs as he watches Keith climb the rest of the stairs and close the door to his room.

Later, in the middle of the night, Lance wakes to get a drink and sees the faintest glowing light under Keith's door, and wonders just how distant he was planning to be from them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't take any art you see in this fic, if you wanna give it a reblog you can find it on the artist's tumblr -
> 
>  
> 
> [Nikkst3rz!](http://nikkst3rz.tumblr.com/post/169193413516/my-art-work-that-goes-along-with-call-me-kaii-s)


	2. Chapter 2

 

The next day starts at its usual early hour of seven in the morning, despite it being the weekend. Lance doesn't particularly enjoy it, but it's the routine that's been forcibly drilled into his daily life since he was thirteen, and now he’s exceptionally skilled at waking on the hour everyday no matter when he fell asleep the night before.

His bathroom routine is quick and effortless; after relieving himself and washing his hands, he follows with a quick facial wash to clear his pores and wash off the grime of the night, to keep him looking perky and awake. Lotion if his skin is dry; make-up for any dark circles if he has places to be. Then teeth, ears and hair, though on days like today where he’s just working at home, he doesn't fuss nearly as much on his appearance.

Business in the bathroom complete, Lance goes back to his room to dress in old clothes, before he trails down the hallway to the stairs and passes his sibling's rooms. Alex snores loudly, and in contrast Molly-Rose sings loudly to cover it. Keith's room is completely silent, and Lance wonders what time the other teen went to sleep last night.

Downstairs, the twins are in the kitchen; Lucy methodically washing, drying and boxing the eggs that she’d presumably collected earlier at dawn; and Lucas cooking. The blondes nod and say their good mornings, with Lucy continuing to hum to the radio after and Lucas beckoning him over to the stove.

"Take over making these, Lance? I need a wee."

"No prob, Bob."

Lance takes up the spatula and watches over the omelette, flipping it every so often. The bowl on the counter next to him smells of herbs and spices and deliciousness, so when the current omelette finishes cooking, his plates it and sets it aside for his brother, then pours some more of the batter to make one for himself too.

"Thanks my dude!" Lucas pats his shoulder roughly in appreciation, flipping his long surfer hair out his eyes with a grin as he grabs utensils and sits at the opposite side of the island to the kitchen, with his back to the dining room. As he sits, Lucy leans over from her side of the island counter and tears off a piece of the omelette, stuffing it in her mouth before Lucas could even squawk out a 'hey!'.

Cheeky hazel-brown eyes wink at identical, yet annoyed ones, and the twins dissolve into a round of squabbling that makes Lance laugh. He passes his finished omelette to Lucy, who squeals happily at him and hugs him tightly; her well-muscled arms encompassing his frame easily; and makes another one for himself.

Later, at around eight, Alex and Molly-Rose arrive in the kitchen, already arguing about one thing or another. Molly’s fiery copper hair is a mess of wet tangles down her back, and Alex’s ruly, dark chocolate curls look freshly dried, and Lance surmises that their fight was about who’d used the shower first. 

“You  _ know _ I’m working in the shelter today!” Molly whines, slapping her tiny fists on Alex’s arm. “I should be ready already and I’m not because your fat butt got in the way!”

“You should have moved faster, you wake up before me…” Alex shrugs, yawning, before pouring himself a bowl of cereal. “It’s not like I want to clean the house or mow the lawn today either.”

“Want to swap?” Lucas grins. “You can get up at five in the morning for once.”

“Yes, I would love to have a lie-in!” Lucy agrees, dragging a hand through her ruffled pixie locks. “But no - every day I wake up at dawn to collect these eggs and feed all the animals!”

“And I go ‘round milking the nannies and bottle feeding the orphans, like I did three hours before then too.” Lucas adds.

Alex and Molly share a look, and the pair silently come to a stop in their arguing. The twins look smug, but also a little disappointed that they couldn’t convince the younger kids that their job is fun. Lance supposes it is, for them at least. He helps out too sometimes, just not in the morning. 

“Hey Molly, I’ll tell you what,” Lance starts, bringing his empty plate to the sink. Lucy grabs it from him to wash up, and he bumps hips with her thankfully. “If you eat your breakfast real quick, I’ll braid your hair before we head over, okay?”

“Really? Okay!” 

The eight-year-old nearly splashes milk all over the kitchen top in her haste to make her cereal, and the sight makes all the older kids laugh. Lance hangs around in the living room in the meantime, flicking through TV channels. Mateo passes by the hallway and calls out a goodbye as he heads to his repair shop just outside of town, a leisurely 20-minute walk down their lane away.

Molly finally drags her feet into the living room, trailing ribbons and her hairbrush as she starts chattering about what kind of hairstyle she wants.

"Calm down, kiddo, if I was any good at this I'd be a hairdresser, not an animal care student." Lance jokes, and though she pouts she lets him brush her thin ginger locks, until they lay mostly flat against her back, down to her elbows. He then splits her hair into two, braiding down both sides of her head.

"Done and done!" He announces after a while, admiring his handiwork.

"Thank you!" Molly jumps up, racing for the front door. "Let's go!"

Lance follows with a grin.

 

Mam is at the reception desk when they get there, going through the paperwork already. She glances up at them, and then at the clock, which read nine, and raises a brow.

"Hair malfunction," Lance gasps at her dramatically, and Molly giggles. Mam rolls her eyes and shoos them to the back rooms, where the shelter splits in half for cats and dogs.

They start off in the cat area, and Molly starts her job of refilling water bowls, as well as retrieving the food bowls from the cages and putting them in the sink to wash. Lance goes through their collection of cat foods, and divides up portions using clean bowls, and hides medications for some of the cats in with their food. Most are small enough to eat in a bite, but some he has to grind into a fine powder and mix in well.

As Molly washes the old dishes, Lance dishes out breakfast for the kitties, dealing with the ones with medication first so he doesn't mix them up. For some cats he can usually pet them in between, since they were quite friendly, but some liked to hide away from him since they needed more socialisation, or simply didn't like humans. This is also why he was the one to clean out the litter boxes, whilst the cats were distracted. He handed off any dirty blankets to Molly, who organised them by type and colour for the wash. They have a couple of washer-dryers for both the cats and the dogs, so that they don't accidentally get mixed together. With the washing loaded, they move onto the dog kennels.

The routine is the same over there, except Molly stays with the smaller breeds of dogs. The bigger breeds, like Rover the Great Dane, can be too much to handle for a small girl like herself, and Lance didn't want her or Rover getting injured because of a giant energetic puppy who just wants to love people.

Molly collects up the dirty blankets again after refilling the waters through the slots in the gates, and Lance hands her the ones from the cages she can't go into. As she sorts out the washing, Lance finishes up handing out the food bowls and their medications. The blankets are thrown in the wash, old bowls are washed and left to dry, and by the time they have that done the dogs have finished eating and are ready to be let out for a bit.

The backs of the kennels have electrical doors that slide open using a trigger button, and Lance presses it, releasing the dogs into little tunnels that connect to different play areas outside. Lance closes the doors behind them, then presses a button for doors at the ends of the tunnels to open to the play areas. The doors are left open as the dogs take their time joining the social area. Since some dogs were more socialised than others, some can play together without the risk of any fights, and it helped keep the dogs happy and entertained. Meanwhile, less sociable dogs were connected to their own private gardens to play in or just enjoy the sun on their own.

While the dogs are outside, Lance sets about cleaning up. He fills a bucket of warm soapy water and wheels it to the first pen, where he cleans up any poop from overnight in a bin bag and any scraps of torn bedding, and Molly comes in after with a mop and the bucket to mop over the floors. It's messy, and smelly, but it needs to be done and they have fun grumbling over it together and splashing the floor with excess water. They leave the floor to dry naturally after and clean themselves up.

"Last chore!" Molly sings, drying her hands. "My favourite one!"

"That's right!" Lance agrees, grabbing leashes and poop baggies.

Some of the younger, more energetic dogs require multiple walks a day, and whilst the rest are walked around midday or after lunch, some are walked in the mornings and evenings.

The dogs in question are five small-to-medium sized dogs: Jasper the Jack Russell, Purdy the Labradoodle, Twitch and Jitterbug the Chihuahuas, and Turbo the Bull Terrier. Lance leashes Turbo and Purdy from the bigger dog pen, and Molly grabs the other three. Some of the bigger breeds of dogs that need long walks will be handled later by other members of staff. The double-gate system on the outside of the play pens helps to make sure that no dogs escaped with them, and after a couple minutes of tangled cords and happy dogs, the group make their way out.

The Rivera family own several acres of fields around their house, thanks to the two booming businesses they ran on site. The fields surrounding the barn are for the farm animals, and the ones at the back of the shelter are divided up into play areas for the dogs, as well as more open play areas for visiting families hoping to adopt. They traverse the fields with practised ease, using secret footpaths through the long grass until they pass their final fence. Here they keep hold of the dogs, who have been enjoying the freedom of the empty fields, securing their leashes again as they walk them down the country walks and steer clear of other dog walkers. They pass few people, most of whom recognise them and say hello, until they reach the woodland and pass the sign that permits dogs to be let off their leashes again. The woodland was fairly sparse, and undergrowth thin, meaning it was easy to keep track of any pets. The dogs are let loose and race off, and Molly follows them, eager to play and tire them out.    
Lance finds a good spot to sit down and keep an eye on them, dozing with one eye shut and wavering on the border of sleep. Early midday sunlight filters through the treetops easily and the sounds of happy dogs and his giggling sister soothe his thoughts for the next twenty minutes or so.

Molly jogs back to him, panting. “The dogs are tired now.”

“How about you?” Lance grins up at her, observing how her braids had unravelled and caught leaves in between strands. 

“I want a nap.” She crosses her arms with a sigh. 

“Aren’t you too old for naps?”

“Aren’t you the one who’s been ‘resting his eyes’ against this tree the whole time?”

“Touché.” 

The dogs are easy to round up and walk back, energy drained and they happily keep to heel with the duo, who return them to the play pens and watch them lap water from the bowls eagerly. Molly runs inside to grab a towel to wipe their paws down with, and after that they leave the dogs to cool down in the shade and the duo can head inside as well. Inside the shelter, the washing that they put on earlier was dry and being folded by Peggy and Dion in the laundry room, with the older woman folding the cat blankets and Dion folding the dog’s.

“Thanks guys!” Lance beams at them, feeling proud of the little team. 

“No problem at all, sweetie.” Peggy smiles back at him. “Your mum’s just gone out to walk Rover. Kacey’s out on the front desk.”

“Thanks. If she asks, I’ve gone back to the house.”

“I’m going to the stables!” Molly announces, bounding back into the room. “I just saw Lucy head over there so I’m gonna go play with the horses while I can!”

“Be careful even so,” Lance ruffles her already messy hair, and she swats his hand away and runs off.

He waves goodbye to the staff and to Kacey as he heads through the shelter entrance and up the gravel drive to the house. He was definitely feeling his muscles ache already, and the clock in the hallway suggests that the time was already past midday. Maybe he’ll grab a snack, have a nap for an hour or two, then do some coursework. He has an assignment for Biology due on Monday…

The smell of burnt toast hits his nose as he enters the kitchen, and there he sees Keith scraping butter onto blackened bread. The two teens lock eyes and there’s a moment of silence.

“I didn’t realise the setting was too high!” Keith blurts, flushing.

Lance huffs a laugh. “Don’t worry about it, we can’t all be great cooks in this house.”

Keith frowns at him, annoyed.

“If that’s your lunch, you might as well make as much as you want,” Lance adds, ignoring Keith’s glare to pick up an apple and rinse it under the tap. “Breakfast and lunches are free-for-all, since everyone has their own schedules.”

He spares Keith a glance, to see the shaggy haired mop shrug noncommittally. He takes a bite of his apple, wondering if he should bother trying to keep up this one-sided conversation.

“Well, I think I’m gonna head upstairs, have a nap before I do my coursework.” Lance sighs.

Keith clicks his tongue. “Kinda lazy of you, isn’t it?”

Okay, wow. That kind of stung a little.

Sure he’d said it in a light-hearted way, trying to make himself sound a bit funny, but did Keith seriously not realise he’d been out of the house for nearly five hours already?

“When the fuck did  _ you _ even wake up, anyway?” Lance snaps bitterly, hiding his glare with another bite. Keith glances at him at his tone of voice, but he doesn’t meet eyes with him.

Keith chews his burnt toast slowly, carefully. “About an hour ago. I had trouble falling asleep so I slept in. And somehow I got down here before you.” He adds pointedly.

_ The fucking nerve, honestly. _ Lance takes a deep breath, trying hard not to lose composure. The fact that Keith had the balls to just assume Lance was lazier than him was a little appalling of him. Well if that’s what he wants to think, fine.

“Just because I wasn’t here doesn’t mean I wasn’t awake this whole time,” Lance grits out, painfully polite. He thinks of Mam, and her request to be kind. At this rate, it was going to be a struggle. “I’ve been busy and only just got here for lunch, okay?”

Keith looks at him oddly, placing his now-empty plate in the sink as he leaves with the last bit of his toast in his hand. “Sure. Whatever you say.”

Lance takes another bite of his apple as he listens to Keith stomp away, but he’s not quite hungry anymore.


	3. Chapter 3

The weekend goes by quickly, Lance thinks, as he immerses himself in his usual routine of work and coursework. He had complained to Peggy about hardly running into Keith at all, and she’d laughed at him, told him to give the boy more time. It’s hard, considering he doesn’t know what to do to make Keith feel better, and leaving him be didn’t seem like a good idea. But if that’s what the adults say to do, so be it.

Monday morning has Lance up and showered by eight, and on his way down to breakfast he raps his knuckles on Keith’s door. It takes a couple minutes, but it creaks open.

“What?” Grumbling, Keith rubs at his eyes. Lance wonders if he stayed up all night again.

“College, buddy!” Lance pins a cheery smile on his face. “It’s kinda far from here, and you don’t have a ride, right?” 

Keith’s face falls a little, and Lance once again wonders what kind of accident he’d been in. Him and his dumb mouth.

“Sorry.” He adds, quieter. “But we start and finish the day roughly at the same time, so I’m happy to drive you there and back.”

“Thanks, but I’m still on Official Leave for a bit longer…” Keith murmurs, looking down at his feet.

“Okay. But the offer still stands for when you’re going back, all right?” 

Keith nods, then shuts the door again silently. 

The drive to college is quieter than usual, despite the radio playing songs that he knew. He just didn’t feel like singing along with them somehow. Even as he parks his car in his usual area, he feels like he’s displaced, slightly. Something else should be happening right now, but he can’t think what.

“Lance? Hey!”

Hunk sidles up to him as he locks his car, pulling him into a one-armed hug as he hoists his bag up on his shoulder. 

“Hey, Hunk, how was your weekend?” Lance grins at him, returning the one-armed hug by stretching his arm around Hunk’s broad back, and the two match their steps together as they walk up to their main campus building arm in arm. 

"My aunts came over on Friday - did NOT leave until this morning." Hunk groans, lips curling at the edges in amusement. "So the whole weekend was a bunch of squabbling between three ladies, from the colour of the curtains to the tiles in the bathroom. They picked over every little thing just to rile Mum up. Their teasing is relentless. But the cooking was delicious."

"Yeah I feel that. Family cooking, man. Can't beat it."

"I feel like I've eaten enough for three people. Just can't help it though. There's STILL leftovers."

"Please tell me you brought some with you today?"

"Even a container for you to take home, buddy."

"I fucking love you, Hunk. Please marry me."

"I'll have to ask Shay."

"Damn. She'd never share you."

Hunk laughs, and Lance smiles broadly at his best friend. He is probably only half-joking about the whole marriage thing, especially considering Hunk is taken. He vaguely remembers he and the big guy making a 'if I'm not married by the time I'm 40' pact, but the details are fuzzy and more importantly he doesn't think Hunk would actually agree to it if they were being serious. And whilst Lance DOES love him, he doesn't feel that kind of love for him, even though he was essentially the best partner he could ever imagine having.

"How about you dude? Figure out that weird feeling you had?"

"Oh."

Oh yeah, Keith is something he definitely had to talk about.

"It was about Keith, in the end."

"Kogane? From last term's Astronomy class that you signed up for on a whim?"

"Yeah. Some stuff happened, and well... he's staying with us for a while."

Hunk's brows shoot up into his hair, and he whistles. Knowing Lance's family is full of former fosters, Lance assumes he can gather enough from that to know that Keith is in the same sort of boat.

"What happened?"

"An accident?" He phrases it as a question, pairing it with a shrug that dislodges Hunk's arm a little. "I don't know entirely. His brother had to be flown out to specialists in America though, and Keith has-"

"Woah, did Shiro get seriously hurt?!"

"Wait, what?!" Lance stops in his tracks, which is, admittedly, a bad idea in a busy hallway. "Shiro?"

"Yeah?" Hunk's arm falls to his side as he continues forward a few more steps ahead of Lance, and he turns to watch him. "Keith and Shiro are brothers, dude, you didn't know?"

"Shiro, the hottie TA?" Lance croaks out in surprise. "Is Keith's brother?"

"Well, not by blood, obviously. But yeah?" Hunk shrugs. "Damn. I wonder what happened? What were you saying about Keith, by the way? Does he remember you from...?"

"Ahh... no. He has short term memory loss." Lance winces. "I think maybe they were in a car accident? It seems like it could be that. But if I say something that reminds him of it even slightly, he gets this pained look on his face, like he might cry. It's barely been a week, after all."

"God, yeah. Imagine your whole life being thrown into chaos in the space of a few days."

The thing is, Lance can. He knows exactly how that feels. Even nine years later he can remember the look on his biological father's face as his son was taken away from him, and the faces of all the strangers he became surrounded with after that. He learned quickly not to trust anyone too soon before long.

"Yeah." Lance murmurs, adjusting his bag. Echoing throughout the hallway, a bell rings for classes. "I'll just.. give him some space for now."

"Yeah, don't worry, it'll be fine once Shiro's all better." Hunk nods, but Lance doesn't really feel reassured.

 

* * *

 

Lance heads to Keith’s room when he gets back home, a bundle of papers tucked under his arm for the absentee. This time when he knocks, he can hear murmuring and the sounds of something barely audible being played, possibly through headphones.

Keith answers, blinking at the bright light of the hallway, and through the crack of the door Lance sees how dark the room is behind him.

“Hey, how ya doin’?” Lance asks gently, watching the wary boy’s movements. Behind the pair of them, comes more noise through the headset on the desk. 

“I’m kinda in the middle of something right now…” Keith mumbles, seemingly itching to get back to the glow of his laptop.

“Right.” Lance sighs. “Well I stopped by the teacher’s lounge and picked up some of the worked you’ve missed so far. Maybe have a look through it, if you can spare the time.” Lance drawls the last part, handing the papers over with a raised brow, turns away to his room down the hall.

“Thanks.”

It’s quiet, and almost overridden by the sound of the door shutting, but Lance smiles anyway.

 

* * *

 

A week of more or less the same thing every day happens after that. Lance drops Keith’s work off at his bedroom door, catching glimpses of the video games he’d been playing in the background. He recognises a few of them, having those games himself, but the door is always shut on him quickly, especially if there was a lot of noise coming from Keith’s headphones, as if he were gaming with someone else already.

Whilst Lance would let the guy stew on his own, as he was told to do by his siblings and Hunk and Peggy more than once, he knows for a fact that Keith is skipping classes now. His absence note ended the previous Wednesday, and it was already the weekend again. Now on Sunday evening, Lance has had enough.

He catches Keith on the stairs after dinner. “Hey, skipper.”

“What?”

“Skipper.” Lance shrugs, and he slows on the stairs as he catches up. “Skiver. AWOL student. Whatever you wanna call it.”

“I’m on official-”

“You’re not. I  _ have _ been going to the teacher’s lounge every day to pick up your work, remember. They’ve asked me where you’ve been. You didn’t even make up a lie!” Lance points out. “If you’re gonna skip at least make it look realistic.”

Keith looks understandably upset. It’s not like Lance didn’t understand him, he’d want more than a week off college too in his shoes. But he’d also at the very least call in sick; he’s responsible enough to do that. The way Keith is now, shaking with rage and agitation is something Lance was expecting, so he braces for the fight.

“I am  _ not _ skipping.” Keith grits his teeth, his words grating. “I just need time to myself.”

“Yeah, so do I.” Lance rolls his eyes. “I go to college six hours a day, then come home and work three more. And I’m not talking coursework.  And if it’s not my turn to cook or clean, then I’m helping Molly and Alex with their homework, or the twins on the farm. Trust me, I  would  _ love _ some time to myself. The thing is you’re just taking the easy way out and shirking your responsibilities.”

“Oh, fuck off!” Keith growls, keeping his voice low, since Molly and Alex were still downstairs. “What the hell do you know? Do have any idea about what I’ve been through?”

“Some. Not all, but some of it.” Lance quips back easily. “I don’t know the rest because you’re refusing to acknowledge that it’s happened. Do you really believe that your accident will just go away if you cut yourself off from the rest of your life?”

“I’ll do whatever the hell I want, asshole. Maybe that’s just hope I cope, ever thought of that?”

“Your ‘way of coping’ is bullshit and we both know it.” Lance snaps, and Keith clicks his jaw shut. “You’re denying yourself the chance to move on, to go back to normal. You need to get your life back on track, catch up on work and just carry on. Would your brother be happy with how you are right now?”

Keith, for all intents and purposes, starts to crumble under his words. The shaking takes over his whole body, and Lance can’t see his eyes beneath the shroud of hair and ducked chin. He recognises what’s going to happen before his mind can process it fully and he rushes up the last three steps to catch Keith under his arms. The boy is sobbing before their knees even hit the floor, and the brunet winces as Keith’s fists pinch his skin in his grip.

“I can’t, I can’t!” Keith sobs. All the anger drains from the older teen’s body as his heart wrenches empathetically. “It’s all fucked up! I fucked up! I can’t - Shiro, he’s! It’s - he’s gone and it’s my  _ fault- _ ” he cuts himself off with a deep, shuddering breath between sobs and as he releases that same breath he adds quietly, “God, I… I-I hate myself  _ so much _ .”

“Oh, Keith,” Lance breathes, equally quiet. Regret builds up in his stomach; how could he not see how fragile Keith’s been this whole time? And he blames himself? No wonder he wants to run away from his old life. Scooching across the floor with his heels, Lance pushes himself and Keith down the hallway, over to the nook by Keith’s door and under the window. The corner is partially hidden from view of anyone passing by, and since Keith is still clinging to him, Lance uses his own body to shelter him further, pulling his knee up to hide how Keith’s body lay practically atop his. He leans against the wall, wriggling his arms around Keith’s back and lets the other teen sob into his neck.

“Keith, Keith,  _ shhhh, it’s alright. _ ” He keeps his voice low, his tone the same one he uses for Molly when she cries after a nightmare. Hands creep up into dark ebony hair and he pets it, drags his fingers through it, scratches at Keith’s scalp. Everything he can think of to soothe his tremors. Keith struggles to breathe through his sobbing, fighting wet coughs and a blocked nose, and all the while Lance hushes him, whispers in his ear, pets his hair and rubs his back. It sucks, this whole situation sucks, because the Keith that Lance knows is a strong kid, the one who doesn’t show his weak sides willingly. It’s not that Lance holds him up on a pedestal - not anymore, anyway - but he knows that Keith, in his right mind, will hate realising how much of this side of him he’d revealed. Lance isn’t a close friend, or someone he trusts with his secrets. Not even a classmate, really. He’d be mortified if it were him like this, so all he can do is keep his eyes closed and averted, and wait until Keith was calm again.

They sit slouched together for ages, in the dark corner of the hallway, until Keith’s sobs are reduced to hiccups and sniffling, and Lance’s murmuring is down to light head scratches and back pats.

“Lance? I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too, Keith. I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”

“It’s fine, you’re right after all. I deserve it.”

“Oh, hey, no,  _ no-one _ deserves to get yelled at, sweet cheeks,” Lance insists, squeezing Keith tightly. “You’re in a bad spot and you’ve been putting up such a big wall around you that I couldn’t see how much you were hurting, and I was insensitive. No ifs or buts.”

Keith huffs at that, as close to a laugh as he’s likely to get, and Lance grins just a tiny amount. 

“I’m still sorry.”

“Shut it, Keithy-kins. We’re having a bonding moment here.”

“God, I must look terrible…”

“Wouldn’t know, honestly.”

“What?” Keith shifts in his grip, presumably to look up at his face. “Are your eyes-”

“-Closed? Yep, the whole time, I promise.”

“... Why?”

“Figured you wouldn’t want me to see you cry,” Lance mutters, face going warm. “Respect your boundaries, blah blah, insert something cool and witty here.”

Keith’s forehead thumps back against Lance’s collarbone. “Thank you.”

“No problem my dude.”

They fall into a comfortable silence for a few minutes. Lance can’t imagine for the life of him what Keith could be thinking right now, so he focuses on the noises of his family on the floor below them. He can hear the TV in the living room, and there’s audience laughter every few minutes, so he wonders if they’re watching a talk show. Clattering and whistling from towards the kitchen area suggests that Mateo is in the kitchen, probably making a hot drink. Alex is in his room down the hall from them, blasting music, and Molly-Rose was probably with the twins in the barns. Keeping his eyes trained above them, he peeks his eyes open at the sky outside the window. The night is dark already at a little after eight, and stars are illuminating their small space. He watches the clouds roll for a while, at peace, until Keith shifts again.

“Lance?”

“Yeah?”

“Why are we still sat like this?”

Right.  _ RIGHT. _

“Shit!” Lance curses, immediately releasing his hold on Keith, hands dragging themselves reluctantly from the other boy’s hair and back. Keith sits up slowly, and Lance tenses, keeping his gaze upwards and out the window, but he can feel him staring. 

“Lance? What are you doing?”

Keith waves a hand in front of his face, and slowly he shifts his gaze downwards, meeting reddened, blotchy cheeks and tear-rimmed violet eyes.  _ How unfair, _ Lance thinks to himself,  _ you’re still cute even when you’re a mess. _

“You okay now?” Lance clears his throat awkwardly.

“Yeah. I guess. Sorry about your shirt.”

Lance pinches the collar near the damp spot, pulling it this way and that to inspect, then shrugs. “Eh. Don’t worry about it.”

Keith nods, still sat mostly between Lance’s legs, but leaning back now on his hands. 

“So, how about college tomorrow?” He feels like an ass for bringing it up again, but it’s all he can think to ask.

Keith huffs, a cross between a laugh and wet sniff of his blocked nose.

“I’ll think about it?” he replies unevenly.

“Sure, I’ll take it.”

The two sit there still, unsure of what to do next. Below them, the audience laugh reel echoes the giggles of his parents as something happens on the show. 

“I’m gonna go!” Keith blurts, suddenly. He’s getting to his feet before Lance can even blink. “Shower. Yeah, I’m gonna shower so um, I’ll see you later?”

“Uh, yeah?”

Keith nods, then ducks into his room, almost slamming the door. Lance lets his head fall back against the wall, relieved that the root of his thrumming heartbeat was now just a few metres behind him instead of cradled in his arms. That was… something. His instincts had just kicked in to hold him and hush him, despite all the negative feelings he had for him moments before. 

Maybe… he still likes Keith.

“Shit.” 

 

* * *

 

The following morning, Lance doesn’t see Keith at all as he gets ready for the day ahead, and he can feel his disappointment building as he calls out goodbyes and heads outside.

“Hey.”

“Holy fudge-!”

Keith, at least, has the decency to look sheepish. His hair is pulled back into a messy ponytail, and his clothes are a little wrinkled, but he has his shoulder bag slung across his chest and a folder full of papers clutched in his arms.

Bewildered, Lance simply breathes, “Ready before me, huh?”

Keith shrugs.

“Did you even eat breakfast?”

Another shrug.

Lance rolls his eyes, opening the door again and running inside. He comes back and presses a freshly washed apple into Keith’s hand and dashes to the car before the other student can say anything about the gesture. 

Once Keith is in the car with him, the trip is silent. The radio plays a soft melancholy song that reminds Lance painfully of the person in the passenger seat, so he keeps quiet and resists the urge to sing along, instead filling his thoughts with ideas he could use later.

As he parks, Keith is quick as always to escape. Just before he shuts the car door, however, he ducks his head back into the car.

“Thanks, Lance. Really.”

Lance is left alone in the car with the realisation that he is definitely not over Keith just yet.

 


	4. Chapter 4

Keith continues to go to college normally after that. They have a set routine: go together, separate once they’re there, then Lance usually finds Keith waiting at his car at the end of the day. Nothing else has really changed. Keith still sits in his usual spot in their shared classes, though occasionally he spares the brunet a glance over his shoulder, with a thoughtful look on his normally blank face. At lunchtime, there’s no sight of him, naturally. 

At least there is some idle conversation on the drive home, sometimes. Lance will bring up something their Photography teacher said or did, and sometimes Keith will laugh or comment, but it’s painful seeing that carefully blank look on the other teen’s face that he wore to placate the worried teachers’ frets.

As Keith retreats to his room once more, Lance searches the house for Mam, eager to seek her advice.

She’s folding blankets in the laundry room when he finds her, with Oreo the fat tomcat lazing on one ready-made basket in complete disregard for the hair he leaves behind. The radio in the corner is playing soft tunes.

“Hey Mam?”

“Yes, sweetheart? What’s up?”

“Any news on Keith’s brother?”

She pauses ever so slightly, the small blanket slipping out of the folds in her lapse, and she redos it with a tut. “Not a lot. The Shiroganes are a private family. His surgery to remove the damaged limb was successful, but that’s all I know so far.”

“Amputation?!” Lance cries out in shock, slapping his hands over his mouth, even though he knows realistically that Keith can’t hear him from this floor. Mam lifts a brow at him, and he takes his hands away to add, “So it was a car accident, or…?”

“Motorcycle, the boys both had one. They liked to race, I think, and then one night…”

“Oh.”

Holy shit.

“That’s… shit. Oh my god.”

“Language.”

“Right. But still - how come Shiro was the one who got more hurt?”

“A car hit him. Keith was out of range of the impact but his bike slid out from underneath him and he took a tumble.”

And he hits his head. And suffers short term memory loss. And most likely, definitely, blames himself for all of this.

“Oh Lance, my dear.. Don’t start beating yourself up for not knowing; that’s silly.”

Warm brown arms smelling lightly of honey envelope him in a tight embrace and only then does he realise he’s shaking hard. 

“I don’t know what to do, Mam.” He groans into her shoulder, nuzzling his nose into her soft sweater, leaning down a little to do so because he’s the taller one. “I’m not even involved and I feel so bad… Keith looks miserable all the time, he thinks it’s his fault. He’s falling into depression, I think. If he isn’t already.”

“Maybe we need to keep his mind off of it?” She suggests with a hum, rubbing his back.

“How would we do that? Put him to work?” Lance jokes dejectedly.

“Well, animals are known to be very therapeutic to be around.” Mam says, and it brings an idea into his head.

“That’s it!” He pulls back, beaming. “I’m gonna go get Keith!”

Mam waves him off with a soft smile.

He nearly trips up the stairs, tumbling into Keith’s door with an excited thump, and starts to bang on it.

“Keith! Keith!  _ Keiiith!” _

“What the fuck Lance?!” The teen of interest swings the door open and Lance leans eagerly into the new space.

“So, which do you like more: cats or dogs?”

“What the-”

“ _ Pick _ , Keith. Quick, quick!”

“Um, cats?”

With a grin, Lance latches on to Keith’s wrist and tugs, hard.

“Perfect, let’s go!”

 

* * *

 

“I’m serious Lance, what the hell is going on?” 

“You’ll see! Keep your eyes shut please.”

He guides the wary adolescent into a small room, labelled the Cuddle Corner, and sits him down on a big pillow on the floor.

“Wait here, I’ll be back real quick!”

Surprisingly, Keith complies, frowning all the while. Lance leaves him exploring the area around his seat with his hands and dashes off, picking up a carrier and going to collect his favourite kitties.

He returns a few minutes later.

“Alright, are you ready Keithy-kins?”

Keith perks up at the noise, in particular to the meowing coming from his general direction. Lance closes the door tightly and sets the carrier down, undoing the latch too.

“I’d like you to meet Sherbet and Parma Violet.”

“Sweets…?”

Keith blinks his eyes open, almost startling at the two fluffy half-grown kittens barreling towards him. The two silver-grey Maine Coon kittens wobble their way towards him, meowing and clambering all over him in an instant. Lance sets himself down on the floor too, sprawling out and reaching out for the one with tabby markings, Violet.

“What… what’s wrong with them?”

“Nothing!” Lance chirps. “Well, they have a brain condition called  Cerebellar hypoplasia, or CH, and it affects their balance. That’s why they’re called Wobbly Cats for fun. But it doesn’t hurt them, and it won’t get any worse. They think and feel like normal kitties.”

Beside him, Violet flops over onto her side, and she uses the moment to wiggle her way towards Lance, snuggling into his face and neck with a purr. Keith, after a pause, starts to pet Sherbet on his lap.

“Violet has it more strongly than Sherbet does,” Lance continues. “They were from the same litter, and the owners didn’t want them. They’re both spayed and really attached to each other, so we’re hoping someone will adopt them together.”

“They look so at peace with their condition.” Keith observes quietly. The longer Sherbet plays in his lap and purrs, the more relaxed he seems to get. Lance picks up a mouse toy and chucks it at him, and Sherbet lunges at the raven-haired teen’s face, shocking him.

“Well, yeah. Like I said, they don’t think they’re any different.”

Lance pulls Violet with him as he rolls onto his back, and after the initial struggle, she adjusts and sprawls out on his chest. He uses his free arm to pillow his head, and with a contented sigh he shuts his eyes and dozes off to the sound of purring and playing. Time goes by with ease. Every once and awhile, he hears the sound of a toy being played with, or a scrabble of claws on wood as Keith pulls a fluffy rope toy along the floor, and he catches the breathless way Keith laughs when Violet gets to her feet and promptly falls onto his face. She slides off him and joins her sibling with the big feather toy by his side and he blinks one eye open to see his classmate smiling softly at the fluffy bundles.

“Do you want to see something cool?” He whispers suddenly, out of the blue. He knows what he wants to do but the attention Keith suddenly gives him makes him bashful.

“Sure.”

Lance nods, clearing his throat quietly. He starts humming a smooth little tune, all soft notes and steady breathing. The effect takes a little while, but after a moment Violet stops playing and wanders over, curious about the noise. Sherbet joins her, and the two twist and turn their heads questioningly, so Lance starts to hum the lyrics. It’s breathless, barely in tune, but the meaning behind the lyrics are what he hopes he can convey to the boy next to him one day, in the awkward way that only he seems to achieve. 

By the time he hums through a verse and some of the chorus, the kittens are dozing off. He sits up quickly, a little shy and more than a little worried about Keith’s reaction, and instead scoops up a sleepy Violet and bundles her into Keith’s arms. Keith takes her purely on instinct, then relaxes and starts petting her slowly, allowing her to adjust herself in his arm and fall asleep. Lance sits back against the wall and does the same with Sherbet.

There’s silence for a bit, filled only with the sound of purring, and it looks like Keith won’t comment on Lance’s odd little song, but he does in fact look up to him after a moment.

“Why did you bring me here?”

“Animals are therapeutic,” he shrugs, quoting Mam. “And they really helped me a lot when I first came here.”

Keith frowns at him. “What do you mean by that?”

“I’m adopted by the Rivera family. I was just their foster at first though.”

“Oh.”

Lance wonders if Keith is thinking about their argument a couple weeks ago, where he implied Lance didn’t have a clue what he’d been through.

“I was put into care when I was 10,” he starts, his usual perky way of chatting fading into something more sedated, a part of himself not many people knew. “My biological mother wasn’t in the picture much, and my biological father was hopeless, even though he tried really hard to keep us all together. Eventually she left us, and he broke down. He had to surrender me to CPS. At first, the couples that took me in weren’t so bad, but they all gave me back for different reasons: they were finally pregnant with their own child, their kids didn’t like me and would start fights, or they decided they weren’t getting paid enough to feed a growing boy who was  _ ‘always hungry’ _ , or something.” He air quotes the last bit. “I came here when I turned 12, and by then I was a food hoarder. Lucas and Lucy had just been adopted by the Riveras, and I didn’t trust any of them. I called Mateo ‘Sir’ and Mam ‘Ma’am’, which is, you know, Madam, but now I call her it because it sounds like a funny way to say Mum.

But anyway, I struggled being here, hoarding food and stuff. It stopped when I realised I could get as much fresh food as I wanted off the farm, and by then I was okay enough to do chores around the house. So one day Mam took me in here.”

 

_ “Take as much time as you need,” she’d said to him gently, leaving him in the room with three or four kittens playing with the toys surrounding him. By the end of the day he smiled properly for the first time in years _

 

“Animals have good instincts,” he finishes, keeping his focus on the kitten in his arms. “You know someone is trustworthy if animals like them.”

Keith looks thoughtful at that.

“Thank you,” he says after a moment. “I had no idea.” 

“Neither did I about you, until you got here.” Lance shrugs. “Just one of those things.”

Keith nods. Biting his lip, he stammers out, “Do you… want to know about me?”

“Only if you want to tell me.”

“Right. Well… my situation was a little different. I was orphaned as a baby, barely one, and raised by an older couple. The lady died when I was about 5, but I stayed with the husband, John, until I was eight or nine. He was texan, and brawley. I think I have a photo with him somewhere; we actually look pretty alike.

Unfortunately he got really sick, and I never saw him again.  I got passed around a bit too, and then met Shiro and his family when I turned 11. Shiro was their naturally-born child, but they couldn’t have anymore and decided to adopt. They were always formal with me, treated me a little like their son’s servant than an actual son, but Shiro always treated me like his real brother.”

Keith takes a deep, shuddering breath, his voice rough as he finishes his tale with: “And I challenged him to that race. And now he’s lost his arm because of me… it was a miracle he made it to the professionals in time to save even some of it.”

 

Keith shuts down then, head ducking and focusing on the cat in his lap. For Lance, it seems that he hoped he didn’t comment on his last statement, so he keeps quiet, instead bringing the conversation back to the animals and the shelter. Lance tells him about all the characters they have in the shelter, as well as funny memorable moments that have happened to him whilst working here. When it’s time to put the kittens away, he takes Keith with him through the shelter pointing out his favourites along the way.

(You’re not supposed to have favourites, he knows, but he can’t help it.)

“You know,” he says finally, once the kittens are back in their den and they walk back towards the front room of the shelter. “You can always hang out here. I’ll bring you over whenever you want.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, of course!” Lance chirps, waving his hands about arrogantly. “I’m basically the boss of this place anyway!”

“If you’re the boss,” Fabian, the finance manager for the shelter, yells at them as they pass the staff room, “then you can come in here and sort these numbers yourself!”

“Woops look at the time we gotta go, sorry Fabi!”

Lance latches onto Keith’s sleeve and drags him out quickly with a laugh. Peggy calls him affectionate pet names until the doors shut behind him, and he hears Keith snort in amusement beside him. They walk back to the house together grinning, and Keith murmuring some choice pet names Peggy had called him, and Lance resisting the urge to punch his arm like he would with a close friend. 

“La _ aaa _ nce!” Molly whines at him, dropping her pen on the table and abandoning her homework to run towards them at full speed. “You didn’t tell me you were going to play in the shelter!”

“I was showing Keith around, he’s never been in the Cuddle Corner!” Lance says defensively back. Molly latches onto his leg and forces him to drag her through the living room, her giggles turning into shrieks as he swings her around. In the hall, Mam watches them whilst talking to Keith. He hears her ask if it helped him at all. Lance’s heart thuds a little when Keith smiles back at her, nodding, and saying it helped clear his mind a lot. 

Dinner had a lot more talking that night, with Keith being a little more involved, and everyone jumping at the chance to get him to open up more. It’s sweet, seeing from the outside point of view now, Lance thinks. Seeing how welcoming and kind his parents and siblings were in the most honest sense of the meaning. His heart warms for his family in this moment.

At the end of the night, Keith doesn’t rush off immediately. Lance stays at the table to help Molly with the last of her homework, so seeing Keith hovering by his shoulder throws him off a little.

“You alright Keithy?”

“Yeah. Today… really helped. Thank you.”

“Anytime, dude. Seriously.” Lance grins at him. 

“Have a good night, you guys.” Keith waves at them and leaves the room.

From across the table, Molly watches his face with a shit-eating grin.

“Lance has got a  _ crush _ !”

“Shut it, gremlin, or you can kiss your precious Math grade goodbye.”

“Don’t you even-!”


	5. Chapter 5

It's a good two weeks before Keith approaches Lance again about visiting the shelter. They'd been going to college together as normal, and their conversations stay light-hearted and casual most of the time, but Lance has noticed the way Keith's mood has been dropping the longer time went by, and he wonders if maybe he should've just dragged him over there himself.

Luckily, he doesn't have to when Keith grabs his arm in the car, just as they parked outside the house.

"Can we go back to the shelter today?" he spits out quickly, as if he’s worried Lance will say no otherwise.

"Of course!" Lance beams at him, and it relieves him to see that the frown the other student has been wearing eases up a little. They leave their bags on the front porch, just out of sight, and Lance leads them back down the lane to the shelter.

Keith pauses just outside, looking up at the name of the shelter above the door.

"Wayward Strays..?"

"Yeah, it's a fitting name, all considering." Lance hums appreciatively. "We take in hard-to-home animals. And sometimes humans." He throws a cheeky grin and wink at Keith, who quirks a half-smile and roll of his eyes at him.

They go inside, and Lance is pleased to see Abel on the front desk today.

"Abel! My good man!" Lance cheers, bounding forward eagerly. The stylish, goatee-sporting man behind the desk grins up at them, getting to his feet and allowing Lance to throw himself at his taller frame, and the two hug it out. Lance turns back at Keith, who all but glares at the stranger like a feral cat. It almost makes him laugh out loud.

"Abe, this is Keith, he's Mam's new 'stray'." Lance chuckles when Keith shifts his glare to him. "Keith, this is Abel, I met him through the system."

"System?" Keith asks warily.

Abel smiles, his perfect white teeth flashing. "I’d just started my degree in child care, specifically with kids in the fostering system, when I met Lance. We kept in touch throughout the years and he convinced me to change my degree and work here."

"I'm a _fantastic_ influence, clearly."

"Whatever you say, kiddo."

"Oi! You're only 8 years older, mister."

"I'm an old, old man, and you act like you're 5 sometimes."

"You're a hot old man!"

Keith's eyes widen a fraction at that, and Lance almost misses it whilst he jokes around with Abel.

"Hot old man with no interest in other men, Lance."

"It's a damn shame that. And you get all the ladies, too."

"No interest in ladies, either."

"Damn, we're all outta luck there."

Abel reaches out and ruffles Lance's hair, making him squeak. He tears his attention from his old friend - _hah, old_ \- and sees Keith looking off to the side, slightly irritated.

"Right. Sorry Abel, it's Cuddle Corner time, we gotta go."

Abel smiles, glancing between the two boys mischievously. "I see. Don't forget to do some work later though, Boss."

"Sure sure."

"Have fun cuddling."

"Fuck off, idiot. Not like that~!"

Abel laughs, then goes to take his place behind the desk again.

Lance quickens his walking pace to walk straight past him, and Keith hurries to catch up, his ears red.

"What cats do you want to meet this time?" Lance asks quickly, eager to move past that slightly embarrassing moment. You know, considering his old crush is currently rekindling before his very eyes as Keith averts his to mumble and shrug shyly.

"Same as before, I guess?"

"Sure! I'll grab a couple others too; it's good for them to socialise."

"Okay."

They wash their hands and after Keith moves off to the Cuddle Corner, Lance gets a couple carriers to transport his favourite kitties.

He returns shortly after, with Sherbet and Parma-Violet in one carrier and three younger kittens in another.

"Right, well you know these two!" He announces, opening their crate door. The two burst out instantly, wobbling over to Keith eagerly. "And it seems they remember you too!"

Keith smiles, soothed by their friendly purrs.

"And these three are Ed, Edd, and Eddy."

Three varieties of ginger-splotched kittens mewl and creep out of the carrier cautiously, meowing loudly at each other and their surroundings.

"This one's Ed, E-D." He eagerly lifts up the mostly ginger one, with white socks, in his left hand. "This one is Edd, spelt E-D-D." With his right hand he scoops up the ginger-and-white splotched kitten who looks like he has a white moustache and beard.

"And this little guy is Eddy." The last kitten is a ginger tabby, almost completely ginger save for small freckles of white along his belly and his tail tip.

"What's their story?" Keith asks curiously, and it makes Lance smile to see him genuinely interested in them.

"Just found abandoned somewhere. We assume Mama was a stray or whatever, so we took them in when they were quite weak and ill. They're about six weeks old, and still on the small side."

For the most part, Sherbet and PV (as Keith has taken to calling her, which Lance finds adorable) are happy to play with toys and hog all of the raven-haired teen's attention to themselves, and Lance has the three shier kittens on and around his lap, dividing his petting and scratches between them, coaxing them into purrs. With the kittens needing to be socialised, both with humans and other cats, he figures this was a good way to hit two birds with one stone, since he could spend time with Keith too.

"I wanted to come back sooner." Keith says suddenly, quietly. The wobbly cats are splayed out in his lap now, grooming each other and purring away under Keith's steady pets.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, I liked coming here. I just didn't want to ask anyone else, and I couldn't find you sometimes, so..."

"Well, I did mention that I basically run this place," Lance jokes, and when Keith looks up at him curiously he adds, "I can't run the business from the house, ya know! So if I'm not there, look for me here, okay?"

Keith watches him closely for a minute, to the point where Lance wonders just how long he's going to keep _staring_ \- but then he nods.

"Is this what you're going to do after college then?" Keith asks instead.

"Yeah! I'm studying Animal Care + Management right now; the management bit is for like, running a business in relation to animals, which really helps me out with this place."

"Do you get a lot of business here then?" Keith asks, then hastily adds, "not that this place isn't great! But like - I hardly see anyone when I pass by it."

"Our opening times are mostly during the day while most people are in school." Lance shrugs. "And then it's like 10am - 4pm on the weekends. But we also do bookings where people who know what kind of animal they're looking for can come in and meet a few of them at a time, that way they can get more one-on-one time with the animals."

"That's... a really nice idea."

"Right?! It's great." Lance grins down at the kittens on his lap, namely Edd and Eddy, as they watch their sibling cautious sniff out a nearby mouse toy. "Another thing that helps is social media."

"Really?"

"Oh, hell yeah! Facebook and Instagram and YouTube go a _long_ way with these guys." Lance lets the kittens off his lap, and he picks up a long feather toy for them to play with. They're curious of it, but don't move just yet. "Instagram accounts for shelters and fosters are super popular right now, and it helps so many kittens and puppies get adopted."

"Who runs it for this shelter?"

"I do that too! But I let Molly run it, mostly."

"Really? She's eight."

"Okay first of all: she's fucking smart for eight. And second of all: their generation is tech-powerful. They grow up with all of our gadgets from the get-go; she knows how it all works.”

“True, I know someone like that I guess.”

“Yeah; I take Photography class so I can take the pro-style photos for the shelter and she picks the ones she likes and does the posting."

Keith looks surprised by that. "I didn't know you actually took Photography for a reason. Most people take it for fun."

"Is that why you take it? Huh, well I do see it as mostly a hobby, but if it boosts media for the shelter and helps these guys find homes then that's a bonus."

"I see. That's pretty great."

"Hey." Lance grins, an idea forming.

"...What?"

"Can I take a photo of you?"

"What?!"

"With the kittens!" Lance adds, grinning through his nerves. "For the Insta. Sherbet and PV still haven't got anyone coming to see them and they need more media. Please?"

Keith frowns at him, then down at the kittens, thinking it over. Lance waits patiently, his heart thudding painfully in his chest with excitement. A totally believable reason to take a photo of Keith, _with cats_ , and keep it on his phone.

"Sure, I guess. But they need to be the main focus." Keith insists, and Lance nods along agreeably.

"Oh, naturally. I'll try and get the best angle on them, don't worry."

He pulls out his phone, a decent model that's not too recent, which he mostly bought for it's amazing camera qualities. Not as good as his pro camera, but it was good for moments like this one. He leans forward, keeping his eyes on the screen, snapping pictures of Keith and the cats in his lap. From sitting opposite them, however, he couldn't get a great view of the kittens, so he sits up on his knees and moves more towards the window, so he could get the lighting better. He takes a few silent shots, including several of Keith looking at him with a frown, or deliberately looking away from the camera purposely.

Finally he gets the perfect shot: the focus is on the kittens, with their eyes closed and almost-smiling, Keith's hands behind their ears and scratching softly, and a portrait view of Keith's face watching them, smiling softly with his hair falling into his face. It's perfect, and Keith looks so serene and peaceful he saves it to his personal gallery too.

"Done," he clears his throat quietly, sitting back down on his butt, and he jolts in surprise to see the three ginger kittens starting to play and bat toys into his legs next to him. Ed even takes a cautious sniff at Sherbet's head, to which she shakes her ears at him in response.

"Are you going to post it now?"

"Nah, later." Lance puts his phone away, a new idea coming to mind again.

"Say, do you wanna go have a look around the farm too?"

 

* * *

 

Unsurprisingly, Lance finds a pair of wellies in Keith's size in the back shed of the house. It sits just outside of the laundry room, so that boots and overalls could be cleaned easily and were within easy walking distance.

"Remind me why I have to wear these?" Keith curses, struggling to pull the toughened rubber material over his skinny jeans.

Lance buttons up his dark green overalls with a tut. He'd offered a pair to the other teen, and couldn't convince him, so he'd just had the boots.

"It hasn't even rained in days..." Keith sighs, finally done. Lance taps his wellies on the ground, making sure they fit. Keith mimics him warily, then the pair head over to the opposite side of the grounds to the shelter, where the driveway tapers off to a dirt road and worn grass. A large fenced off yard surrounds the barn that they head towards, and already he can see it in Keith's eyes, the way he takes in all the half-dried mud covering the place.

"You ready?" Lance grins, then swings open the gate to the barnyard, just wide enough for both of them to fit through.

The area itself is alive with the animals living inside and outside of the barn. Geese are honking at them from the moment the teens get within range, and Keith looks increasingly perplexed as he stomps heavy-footed through the mud.

"This is Goober, the Alpha goose." Lance points out the biggest male greylag goose. He's easily the size of a small child, just a hair shorter than Molly, and he hisses at them as he approaches. "He's basically our guard dog. He doesn't like strangers, so don't turn your back to him just yet."

Keith eyes the bird warily, unsure if the threat is serious or not.

"Come on, quickly past him now."

They hurry into the barn, past the other geese, and Goober follows them for a few feet, before backing out into the yard once more. Inside the barn there is even more noise, bleating and crying of baby animals echo against the walls.

"What's with the noise?" Keith asks, and he wanders over to the brick pens lining the walls of the barn.

"Babies! Namely, sheep and goats."

"In early spring?"

"Yeah, the lambing season actually started around January."

Lance wanders over to join him, and they both lean over the waist height walls to see a couple ewes and their lambs in one pen, the babies running and playing around together.

There are similar pens all the way through the barn, with goat kids opposite to the lambs. In a large pen at the back, a mix of lambs and goat kids play together by themselves in a big bundle of hay and straw.

"Those are the orphaned ones," Lance informs him quietly. "Ones that got rejected, or were a triplet baby, or the mum can't feed them for some reason. Ewes and nannies can only look after a max of two babies, but we can't just get rid of them. So Lucas usually bottle-feeds them every couple of hours until they get to weaning."

Keith looks at the babies with interest, almost as though he can feel their troubles, or something.

There's a meow and a brush of something bumping against his leg, and he looks down in time to see a ginger blur leap up onto the wall of the pen where they were leaning against.

"And this is Toby, the resident mouser."

"My favourite animal in this barn." Keith grins, reaching out to pet him.

"I mean, you haven't bottle fed one of these beautiful babies yet, but maybe you will one day." Lance smiles back warmly.

"Maybe." Keith eyes the black and white lambs softly, watching them play together as he pets the ginger tom.

"Okay, next ones are the horses and animals out in the field."

"I uh, don't really like horses." Keith blurts out quickly. "I just can't get used to being around them? I'm always nervous."

"That's fine, we can skip them."

"Yeah, please."

"Right, pigs and poultry then."

They exit the barn the way they left, and go through a side gate at the edge of the barn's wall where it meets the fencing. It leads them up to a large field, where more geese wander freely as guard animals. Lance leaves Keith behind a little as he rushes through the grass and mud to the other side of the field to where the pigs are. Behind him, he can hear Keith huff with the weight of the gate and the force of the mud.

"So we have two breeding pigs, called Peppa Pig and Hamchop. Don't judge me, Molly usually names the animals."

Keith raises an eyebrow at him skeptically at that as he makes his way over.

"They win awards at shows and stuff too. I can't remember the name of their breed, but they're considered rare because their hair is like, ginger."

Lance waves him forward eagerly as Peppa makes her way through the mud beside the fence to rub up against it and his hand as he scratches her back. She makes pleased noises as he scratches all the way along her back to her head and behind her ears, her favourite spot.

"Hamchop isn't as friendly but Peppa loves her ear scratches, come try it Keith!"

Keith approaches hesitantly, since the mud is deeper around the fence, but Lance is pleased to see him lean over it easily and scratch away at the sow's back with a small smile.

"They're not as smelly as people say they are." He voices quietly, watching Peppa wiggle happily under his ministrations.

"They're one of the cleanest farm animals, actually, given the correct living standards."

There's hissing behind them, and the next ten seconds happen in a flash of moments in Lance's mind.

_Lance, backing away from the fencing instinctively, dancing back out of the mud with practised ease._

_Lance, watching Goober the goose approaching Keith in a flurry of outstretched wings and neck._

_Keith, squawking in surprise and trying to move, only to realise his wellingtons were sunken into the mud._

_Keith, managing to lift one foot out but tripping thanks to the suction, and landing in the mud belly-flop style._

Thankfully, Lance manages to snap out of his shock in time to stop Goober from actually attacking Keith, and he waves him off with some flapping of his own arms, and Goober relents, recognising Lance as someone from the farm and obediently waddling off. Lance turns around to help Keith up but - he can't help it.

He bursts out laughing.

"Oh my fucking god, Keith!"

"Shut the -- ugh, ew. Shut the hell up." Keith spits mud out in between words, which just makes Lance giggle more. There isn't actually a lot on his face, just where some splashed him from his landing, the majority just being on his jeans, shirt and hands. Lance, after tucking his hands into his overall sleeves smartly, hooks his arms under Keith's and helps him up. The raven-haired boy eyes the brunet's mud stained clothes with a smirk akin to revenge, until he realises that this was the reason why Lance had worn them in the first place.

Lance sighs, wiping the laughter tears from his face with a clean hand. "Come on, McMullet, lets go clean you up shall we?"

They walk back in a hurry, and once there, they leave the wellies outside the back of the house by the shed.  Socks are taken off, as well as the overalls Lance had been wearing. Lance throws them in the machine quickly, and turns around to tell Keith to do the same when he pauses.

Keith, currently shirtless, is wrestling with his damp and muddy skinny jeans.

His hair has streaks of mud in it now from pulling his shirt over his head, and his torso has dirty patches on it where the grime had seeped through the material. Lance can't help himself; he stares, eyes wandering over the gleaming pale expanse of his crush's well muscled abdomen and pectorals. He's lean, in the way that makes it seem like the gym is his second-home, but only on weekends. Almost naturally defined and its barely shows, but it was there in front of him and he can almost imagine the way they'd feel under his hands.

Keith finally manages to slide his jeans down, and as he kicks them around his ankles angrily Lance drinks up the flex of the other boy's thighs, the curve of his butt as he turns to the side to lean down and pull at the hems at the bottom, as well as the small collection of freckles he has across his back, where his shoulder blades poke rigidly from his skin and bumps of his spine dip like grooves.

Almost as soon as the moment happens, it's over, and Lance almost lets out a tiny whine as Keith straightens up with his clothes in hand. He looks up - and catches Lance staring. There's a long pause, with Lance still unabashedly absorbing every little detail he can see on Keith's face - the slight upturn of his cute little nose, the one freckle he has just on the inside of his left eye by his eyebrow, the mud streak on his ear - and the sudden redness to his cheeks as he stammers at him questioningly.

"W-What the hell are you looking at?!"

"S-Sorry.." Lance trails off, not the slightest bit apologetic but apologising robotically from force of habit.

Keith shoves his muddy clothes at him roughly, turning away with a sharp frown on his face that doesn't match the embarrassment in his eyes. Luckily Lance doesn't get any of the mud on his own clothes, and he sets up a quick spin wash and dry before following the other student up the stairs stealthily.

He expects Keith to disappear at this point, since they'd already spent a lot of today together and it was nearly dinner time, plus Keith would need a shower before then too.

"You can come in." Keith says, opening the door to his room and leaving it open as he enters it himself. "I'll... be right back, I guess? Stay if you want."

Keith grabs clothes randomly as he spoke, messing his drawers up in his haste, and dashes back out the door.

Lance enters the room eagerly and isn't disappointed with what he sees. Keith, since moving in two months ago, has made the room a lot more personal than how it had been. There are books over every flat surface in the room, and on the bed too. The drawers with his clothes are a mess, and several items of clothing are half-folded, half-hanging from some of them, as if he usually rushed to get ready some mornings. The desk is still the tidiest spot in the room, with the area around the laptop clearly used the most. For studying or gaming though? Who knows.

Keith is a quick washer apparently, since he appears again in the doorway after only a few minutes. His hair is still mostly damp, and his cheeks are flushed as he pulls the towel from his body, revealing that he'd forgotten to bring a shirt with him. As he dresses, Lance thinks over what to say.

"I'm glad you're settling in a little."

Keith jumps, blinking at him. Then he looks around his room, and nods. "Yeah. I don't mind it here too much."

"Our family tends to grow on people," Lance jokes, and Keith snorts as he adds to himself, "And grow in size too."

"That doesn't sound odd to me anymore." Keith sighs with a grin.

"I'm glad." Lance smiles.

There's a moment of silence, where both parties are content with how things are, and then Lance had to break it.

"Do you want to maybe work for us? With the animals?"

"Huh?"

"Work for us," he repeats, swallowing his nerves. His fingers dig into his jeans from where he sits half-relaxed on Keith's desk chair. "Earn some pocket money, hang out with the animals and all that. Shelter or farm, whichever, you can try both. Mam will definitely say yes."

"I... thanks." Keith shrugs his shoulders, his chin dipping low as he trains his eyes on the floor. "I'll think about it?"

"Sure, no problem."

A call from downstairs announces dinner, and as Lance gets up to leave, Keith stands in his way.

"Do you want to play some video games after dinner?"

Lance grins widely. "Fuck yeah!"  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's the first bit of Art from my lovely artist!! Make sure you go check out the main post on her tumblr - [Nikkst3rz!](http://nikkst3rz.tumblr.com/post/169193413516/my-art-work-that-goes-along-with-call-me-kaii-s)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> brief descriptions of a panic attack ahead!

“Hey, do you mind if I grab Lance really quick?”

Keith approaches the lunch table where Hunk, Lance, and a couple of their classmates sit eating. The others shrug and say to go ahead, and Hunk and Lance share a little look.

“Sure man, one second.” Lance spoons up the rest of his pasta into his mouth until his cheeks bulge grossly, then gets up to follow the shifty student out of the canteen and into the hallway. He’s almost done chewing when Keith stops them in a quiet spot.

He swallows the rest. “So, wassup buddy?”

He ignores his eager heartbeat, his system elated that Keith had called him out in college, instead of ignoring him as usual.

“I thought about what you told me, a few days ago.” Keith rubs his arm nervously. “If it’s not too much.. I’d like to work for the shelter?”

“Oh, man, that’s awesome!” beaming, Lance pulls Keith in for a quick hug. “Working with cats and dogs is definitely one of the better ways to earn some pocket money, eh?”

“Yeah.”

Keith’s a little hesitant, but he smiles anyway.

“Yeah, good! We’ll let Mam know when we get home.”

“Thanks.” The bell rings above them, and Keith backtracks and turns down the hall. “Later, Lance!”

“See ya!”

Lance wanders back into the canteen to get his things, humming appreciatively when he sees that Hunk had gathered his stuff for him.

“My dude, my man… thank you. Time to roll out!”

“Why are you so chipper? Keith confess to you finally?” Hunk smirks as Lance sputters in response. They head out of the hall in the opposite direction to where Keith had gone.

“W-what?! No-- _ hell no _ ! Jeez, why you gotta say that.” Lance pouts. “Keith doesn’t even  _ remember me, _ remember?”

Hunk frowns, thinking back on what Lance had told him before. “Ahh, you’re right, you did say that. But it seems like he’s pretty friendly with you now? You guys started over, or something?”

“Yeah, but that’s just ‘cuz Mam’s fostering him at the moment, so I’m like… the nice foster brother.” 

“You’re a good friend to him and he needs that right now.” Hunk nods along. He gives Lance a sunny smile. “You’re doing a good thing, looking out for him. I’m sure he appreciates it more than you think.”

Lance squirms, feeling his cheeks warm, but can’t find anything to say back.

 

* * *

 

Keith gets the hang of his work pretty quickly, Lance admits. 

It’s one month in, roughly, since Keith started working for them. A quick word with Mam has all the paperwork sorted quickly, as well as a uniform shirt for him and some details with his bank account fixed and readied. 

(Lance overhears one night how Keith had basically nothing to his name in his bank, and how he needs to save up to move into his own place after college, and it makes him sad for several reasons.)

On the first day, Lance had had the immense pleasure of rapidly knocking Keith’s door down at 7:30am.

 

_ “Rise and shine, Keithy-boy!” He yells through the door, relentlessly knocking until he hears a pleasing thump of Keith falling out of bed. Keith curses loudly through the door and swings it open, hair sticking up on all sides.  _

_ “What the hell?!” Keith groans, ready to shove Lance out of the doorframe and go back to sleep. _

_ “Mornin’! It’s your first day of weekend work!” Lance beams.  _

_ “What time is it?” _

_ “A lil’ after seven thirty?” _

_ “Shit, why the fuck are you awake so early?” Keith rubs at his eyes. He seems to remember Lance telling him to get ready for an early wake-up call. _

_ “Early? I let you sleep in.” Lance smirks, enjoying the surprised frown gracing Keith’s sleepy features. “I’m usually up at seven and out at the shelter by eight. Every day! Later if Molly’s joining me, though.” _

_ Keith makes a face, like a silent ‘oh’. _

_ “This is nothing; Lucy wakes up at like, half four. Lucas sleeps in three hour shifts because he has lambs and kids to bottle feed through the night.” _

_ Keith groans under his breath. _

_ “Get dressed in something casual, and comfy to walk around in.” Lance pats the teen’s shoulder. “I’ll make you some toast to eat on the go.” _

_ “Thanks.” _

 

_ Lance comes back upstairs five minutes later to Keith asleep again, jeans barely pulled up to his waist and shirt halfway off. _

 

Now, Keith is flawlessly working alongside the regular staff, chatting relatively calmly with Peggy and Fabian, grinning and joking with Dion and Cleo, the vet nurses who stop by on weekly check-ups, and even polite formalities with Kacey and Abel, who are two personalities that Lance had reckoned Keith would struggle with.

The thing is though, Lance was hoping that working with and around Keith would help ease the awkwardness between them, but weekends have passed where the two boys work side by side in stiff silence, without any of the bonding that Lance had watched Keith develop with the others. No matter how friendly he is to him, or helpful--he only pulled  _ two _ pranks on Keith, it's definitely the lowest record he had for the shenanigans he pulled to the staff, compared to the others--Keith seems to force himself to go along with it, or respond politely. The Cuddle Corner sessions still happen too, and even then Keith stays quiet on him.

He's out with Hunk one day, after dropping Keith at home from college and letting the household know he was missing dinner, when he decides to ask his best friend for some help.

"I'm worried I'm doing something wrong!" Lance sighs, slumping into the American-style diner booth and piling his head on his arms. "He's put even  _ more _ distance between us than before! I was hoping us being around each other more would have the opposite effect."

"Lance, sit up, we're in public." Because golden boy likes to look respectable in public, Lance thinks, and obediently does as he asks. People were starting to stare, anyway.

"But Huuuunk?"

"I don't know dude, maybe he thinks he has to treat you like his boss at the shelter?" Hunk lifts up one of the menus, lightly smacking it against Lance's head a few times until the brunet grabs it from him with a huff. Satisfied, he picks up the second menu and scans it.

"What do ya mean?"

"Well, you told him that you're basically going to be taking over the business, so you're technically his boss?  And he doesn't want to mess around if it risks his job?"

"Even though I'm the one  _ trying  _ to get him to mess around and have fun?"

"Yeah, probably. He's probably thinking you're testing him or something."

"He's the one testing my patience, more like."

"Maybe it's the work environment. He doesn't talk in college either, does he?" Lance shakes his head. "Maybe you should just invite him out somewhere that doesn't involve work. He can hang out with us or something. Or just take him out one-on-one."

"That'd feel like a date." Lance murmurs sadly into his menu, and Hunk's lack of comment suggests he hasn't heard it, thankfully.

The waitress comes over and takes their orders, milkshakes and sweet treats being their choices of the day.

"It wouldn't hurt anyone to just go out and have fun instead of keeping him at home." Hunk sighs. "Has he even left the grounds since he got there? Not including college?"

"Uhhh...."

That's a good point, Lance thinks suddenly. If Keith wasn't in the shelter, he was in the house. If he wasn't at the dinner table he was in his room. He didn't really do a lot else.

"I mean... you're right."

"I do make a lot of sense, most of the time." Hunk nods humbly.

The waitress brings over their milkshakes, strawberry and chocolate respectively. Lance slurps the cocoa goodness as Hunk sips his and keeps talking.

"It might do him good to go out and have fun? Can you think of anything he'd like to do?"

"I know he likes to race." Lance mumbles. "But after his accident.. maybe not."

"There's the Camel Trail!" Hunk suggests. "You can take the bikes."

Brightening, Lance sits up and takes another big slurp of his drink.

"That might work! Still a little iffy because, ya know,  _ bikes _ and  _ race _ , but maybe it'll get him out of his shell."

"Only one way to find out."

"You right, buddy."

 

* * *

 

"You. Me. Bike ride?" Lance leans against the wall in the hallway as he watches Keith startle on his way out of his bedroom. For someone always wary and on edge, Lance sure manages to catch him off guard a lot, which he thinks is both cute and hilarious.

"What?"

"You know, take the bikes out for a spin. Bicycles, by the way. Maybe shoulda clarified that. Bike ride with me?"

"Why?" Keith's walls go up around him, eyes narrowing.

"Because if you're not in your room you're in the shelter, and if you're not there you're in college. We need to get you out and about a bit."

Keith watches him closely. Lance reckons he knows by now that he isn't going to take no for an answer. Keith sighs. "Do I have any other options?"

"Well, you could come hang out with Hunk, his girlfriend and I after college sometime too, but I figured you wouldn't feel comfortable around a bunch of people you've never really spoken to."

"That's... true."

"I like to think I know you pretty well, Mullet." Lance grins, though the expression on Keith's face falters a little as he says that.

"...Right. So when are we going, then?" Keith leans back on one leg.

"In an hour or so?" Lance suggests. "Time to pack a lunch and some drinks, get the bikes out and check that they're good to go, and I gotta stop in the shelter real quick."

"Okay." Keith nods, then backs into his room again. "Guess I'll let Pidge know I won't be online for a while."

Pidge is Keith's gaming friend, Lance had learnt a little while ago. They're some insanely smart tween that’s already finished high school and are now working on some highly exclusive robotics course alongside their mechanical science degree. Pidge's whole family seem to be specialists in their fields, and they all terrify Lance, personally.

There seems to be something else going on between them that Keith didn't tell him, too, but he doesn't think it was anything too serious. The fact they are a family of geniuses makes Lance wonder if maybe they were doctors, or something, and maybe they had ties to Shiro's rehabilitation, but he doesn't want to pry.

He heads downstairs, grabbing some plastic tubs to use as lunchboxes, and gets to work packing them. He throws in some fruit, and a chocolate bar each, and gets all the ingredients for sandwiches when Keith bounds into the room again. For a second, he almost looks excited, but drops his expression again once he approaches.

"What do you want on your sanch, Keef?"

Keith stares at him for a while, thoughts flickering in his mind like a puzzle. It puts the brunet a little on edge to be watched like this, but he keeps his smile light and breezy.

"I'll do it myself, thanks." The thanks isn't sarcastic, which pleases Lance a little. The duo make sandwiches side by side for a few quiet moments, Lance humming and Keith tapping his foot occasionally.

"What kind of trail are we taking?" Keith speaks up as they pack their food.

"Camel Trail, have you heard of it?"

A shake of his head.

"It's mostly flat, or well, a third of it is. Then there are some hills and stuff, and I kinda wanna go a little off the beaten path and into the woods if you're up for it." Lance grins daringly.

"Sure, I can probably handle it."

"Good, 'cause if not you'll be eating my dirt!" Lance shimmies his hips from side to side, a cat-like grin gracing his lips as he catches Keith shaking his head at him with his own small smile.

"I'll be taking the lead in any race." Keith says quietly, but it's firmer than Lance expected. He wasn't sure how Keith would react to the word 'race' but he seems okay... for now.

"We'll do a quick tour of the easy route then, and then I'll show you on the local map where we're going after that. We'll have a set finishing place and we can stop for snacks and stuff in between the tour and the race?"   
"You have it all planned out anyway, might as well say yeah." Keith snorts.

Lance huffs, flushing. "I like planning surprises."

The lunchboxes they pack go in Lance's backpack, which he insists on, and the water bottles get attached to the bikes themselves. The mountain bikes belong to his parents, but Lance has their permission to borrow them. After a couple moments where they both adjust things to how they want them, Lance takes off in the lead.

He leads them around the outskirts of town, keeping off of the main roads as much as possible since they weren't wearing any high-vis gear or protective helmets. Keith looks a little on edge, being open to the traffic, and it's one more thing Lance adds to his list of things Keith doesn't like to talk about since his accident.

The Camel Trail starts off just outside the other side of town, where there's more woodland than farmland and a large river. The flattest part of the trail follows the river bank, all the way along to the next town over, before breaking off into the woods and hillside. Lance keeps pace next to Keith, slow and steady, and he acts like a proper tour guide for him, and even entertains a fake tour guide voice for fun. While there aren't any outstanding views in particular, the whole scenery surrounding them as they bike is quite pretty, and the sun isn't too strong on them either, so they can enjoy the cooler breeze.

Just under an hour later brings them to the next town, and they take a break on a nearby bench. Lance chains the bikes together and hands over Keith's lunch as he sits down.

"How are you enjoying it?" Lance asks with a slight pant; he admits that maybe challenging Keith to sprints across open flat terrain with no-one else around might have been a bit much on his legs after not cycling for so long.

"Good. Good exercise."

"I'm pretty sure my ass is gonna hurt after this."

Keith spits his water, and Lance cackles.

"What the hell, Lance?!" Keith chokes, coughing. There's a grin in the corner of his mouth though.

"You know, when you haven't gone cycling in ages, and you're not used to sitting on the seat... bike butt syndrome."

"God, I didn't need that mental image."

Lance winks at him.

Keith rolls his eyes, but the smile drops off his face and he sighs deep into his lunch box instead.

"I'm not really hungry yet.. do you want to do the rest of the trail first?"

"Sure." Lance agrees easily. He packs up their lunches and leads Keith to the trail map. "Kay, so here's where we are. We keep on the trail for the next half a mile or so, then when the little wooden bridge comes up at the top of the hill, we're gonna break off down the riverbank, crossover where it's shallow, then freeride down the totally dangerous slope amongst all the trees in the woods. Take whichever way you want, as long as you come out down  _ here _ by the bike parking lot  _ here _ , at the end of the trail." He points out each of the marks he mentions on the map, which some vandal had marked in with sharpie as a 'hella thriller route, dudes' over the real trail marks.

"You prepared to get your ass whooped?" Lance murmurs.

"I..." Keith starts to say something, but he stops. Lance frowns, but before he can say anything Keith is unlocking the bikes and getting ready to go. Lance hurries to put the lock away and get on the bike after him.

They start off slow, since the normal trail has other bikers on it with them, and the hill that they trek up moments later requires a steady pace rather than blazing speed. At the top, Lance whistles loudly, speeding up and using his momentum to go over the bump at the edge of the bridge and down into the woods and trees, along the river's steeper slopes, until the water is shallow enough to ride through.

A short, eager howl echoes behind him, and suddenly Keith is overtaking him, kicking up a huge wave a water over both of their legs as they pedal through the river at the same time. Shocked, Lance nearly loses his balance, but it's instantly replaced with his competitive streak.

For never taking this trail before, Keith keeps his lead surprisingly well. His knowledge of bikes and how to scope terrain is almost untouchable and Lance has to work hard to keep up--but then again he always has to try and keep up with Keith, he's always been unreachable to him, always slightly ahead and blazing forward unguided.

This is the Keith that always seems to take Lance's breath away, and he follows him hopelessly.

The bike parking lot soon becomes visible through the tree lines: a few rows of metal bars sealed in the ground, surrounded by grassy turf and picnic benches. Keith hops his bike over some large branches, a feat Lance can’t recreate with his longer legs in the way, and seals his victory with some sharp braking and a smooth roll into a parking spot. Lance's chase doesn't end nearly as smoothly.

"Keith! MOVE!" He screams, breaking as hard as he can as he wobbles towards the spot next to Keith's bike and in between the next one along, and unfortunately that's the side of the bike that the raven-haired boy steps towards in a panic. Lance sees the terror in those dark eyes at the last second and swerves as far away as he get possibly get, down onto the grass and into the bushes. He throws himself forward and the bike backwards, hoping to hell it doesn't get scratched or dented. His parents would kill him.

"Lance!" Keith yells at him, chasing after him after a moment's shock. Shaking legs drag him over to Lance's groaning and adrenaline-shocked body.

"Man, what a high, am I right."

"Lance shut the fuck up, shut the  _ fucking _ hell up.  _ This isn't funny, fuck, fuck, fucking-- _ " Keith cuts himself off as he sucks in a deep breath and a lot of things click into place in Lance's dizzy mind.

#1 - the look of terror on Keith's face was the thought of Lance crashing into him, reminding him of his motorcycle accident.

#2 - the fact that Lance ended up crashing anyway and making jokes isn't helping Keith deal with his flashbacks.

Luckily there weren't any other people in the area to see it, he thinks. He picks himself up as quickly as he can, wincing as he can feel scratches and bruising starting to form.

"I'm sorry, shit, Keith, come here--" Lance reaches out and Keith flinches, and Lance pulls himself closer with a hiss. "Keith. Look at me, Sweetheart, it's okay. I'm alright."

He reaches out a second time, hand meeting Keith's down turned cheek, and though he flinches again he doesn't move away.

"Can I keep touching you? Do you need space?"

Keith keeps struggling to breath, and the shaking isn't stopping.

"Keith. Sweetheart. Focus on me, babe." He uses his hand to nudge Keith's face upwards, and blurry violet eyes focus and unfocus on his own blue eyes. He gives him a small smile. "Breath with me, okay babe? Hold it in," he sucks in slow breath, waiting and watching Keith do the same. "And out." Keith doesn't hold his breath for nearly as long as Lance does the first few times, but each round has him breathing steadier and steadier.

The shaking doesn't seem to stop, however, so Lance shifts forward carefully, wrapping himself around Keith's frail form, and the other boy hesitantly wraps his arms around him back, careful not to squeeze him considering his new injuries. Lance keeps up his mantra for breathing in and out, rubbing small circles along his back and reminding him that he's okay.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Sweetheart. I’m okay, don’t you worry.” Lance murmurs into Keith’s ear, feeling the other boy shudder. 

“Are you guys alright?”

A stranger’s voice has them jumping and pulling apart, and Keith wipes at his face as Lance grins shakily up at the strange woman. There’s a man a few metres behind her, holding up two bikes.

“Yeah, thanks. Just went down the hill too fast, wheels went out from under me.” Lance shrugs, silently saying like,  _ what can ya do, ya know? _

“You’re hurt!” The woman says, leaning into his personal space to smear a trickle of blood away from his cheek. Keith backs away from them both as she gets too close.

“I’m fine--”

“I’ve got first aid, okay? Sit tight.” The woman stands straight again, her long blonde ponytails bouncing as she jogs over to her friend. Lance glances back at Keith.

“Keith, are you--”

“Shut up.  _ Please. _ ” Keith spits, his breathing rough and clearly, he’s still rattled by the whole incident. There’s no time to talk though, as the woman comes back with her guy in tow.

“My name’s Nyma,” she says, leaning down to help him up. He takes the offered hand, and sees Keith get up too. “And this is Rolo. We’re both first aid trained so we can help you get cleaned up if you want.”

“I, uh…” Lance winces. On the one hand, a lot of places are hurting quite a bit, and he can feel dirt digging into his scratches. On the other hand, Keith is terrible with strangers, and he wants to get him alone again as soon as possible to make sure he’s definitely okay.

“Please treat him.” Keith speaks up suddenly. His eyes are directed to the grass, but his tone is earnest. “He really fucking scared me.”

“Keith, I’m sorry, I--”

Keith turns away, picking up Lance’s bike and stomping up the slope to lock it up with the other one.

“Yikes.” Rolo murmurs. “What’s his deal? Just an accident, right?”

“Don’t talk about him like that when you don’t fucking know anything!” Lance snaps instantly, hissing when his venom pulls at his ribs. Rolo blinks at him in surprise, then nods, taking a peaceful retreat and goes to lock their bikes somewhere… not close to Keith’s current location.

“Sorry, Rolo has no filter sometimes.” Nyma sucks in air through clenched teeth. With a hand on his arm, she leads him to the closest bench and proceeds to take out a pretty hefty first aid box from her backpack. She keeps him talking whilst she cleans his wounds, and with Rolo smoking far away from them and Keith brooding by the bikes, Lance has no other option but to talk with her, out of thanks. It’s pleasant enough; he learns that she and Rolo are trainee nurses for a local hospital, and have been dating for the past three years. Lance talks little about himself, and cracks a couple jokes to keep the mood light and away from her curious questions about Keith.

With everything cleaned and the more serious ones bandaged, she puts her stuff away and allows him to stand back up again. 

“You can let your boyfriend know you’ll survive the night!” she teases, patting his cheek patronizingly. Her height, Lance realises as he stands next to her, is several inches taller than himself, and her childlike treatment of him makes him fluster.

“He’s uh--well, we’re not together like that, it’s  _ super _ complicated, shit--”

“I’m kidding, don’t stress. You’ll open your cuts again.” Nyma laughs. She grins at him after a moment, eyes shadowing a little as she adds, “Well if you’re single, you’re always welcome to join us. We’re pretty open and always down to teach people some new tricks, if you catch our drift, Cutie.”

She folds a scrap of paper into his hand, then wiggles her fingers at him in a little goodbye wave, then saunters over to Rolo to kiss his cheek and pick up her bike. Lance gapes after them, shocked, until Keith shuffles over to him with a concerned look.

“I think I just got offered a threesome.”

“What?”

Lance shakes his head, and Keith’s frown deepens.

“Forget I even said that. God, that was a little weird.” He stuffs the piece of paper into the depths of his bag. Now that the two of them were alone again, the mood shifts into a kind of tension Lance isn’t familiar with. He can’t go back to comforting Keith, and he isn’t sure how to talk to him about what happened with his bike, so he takes his bag from Keith’s shoulder carefully. “Here, let’s have lunch? Sound good?”

“...Sure.”

Lance shuffles his way back to the bench and sits down with a thump. Keith sitting down directly next to him is a pleasant surprise, but he doesn't push it and says nothing. He hands over the lunch box, and Keith slips him the water bottle that must've fallen off his bike, since it has mud all over it.

"Keith." Lance murmurs after a few tense minutes of silent chewing.

"Lance."

"I really am sorry, you know that right?"

"It's not your fault."

"I planned something stupid and dangerous to try and take your mind off things and I went and sent you straight back there." Lance taps his head harshly, wincing as his nail scrapes a cut. "I caused you to have a panic attack and that's all sorts of fucked up of me to do, and I'm sorry."

"It's me that should be sorry!" Keith growls, pounding a fist to the wooden table. "It's been months and I'm still like this. Still so... messed up."

"Keith, you were in an accident that affected you badly--"

"Shiro had it worse!"

"-- _ which affected you badly enough to give you trauma _ ," Lance continues over him. "And from what I know you haven't gotten any professional help for it. Which I'm thinking maybe you should, just to talk to someone about it."

"I got off so lightly, it shouldn't even matter--"

"It clearly does Keith!" Lance sighs harshly, grabbing his hair. "It's been what? Barely two months? Three? You're not gonna be completely fine after such short time. And that's okay! you just have to tell  _ yourself _ that that's okay."

"I'm getting better, I know that..." Keith takes his face into his hands, propping his elbows on the table. He mumbles into his hands but Lance doesn't quite catch it.

"What was that last bit?"

"I said," Keith mutters, "I'm starting to remember things. Things that I've forgotten in the last year or so."

"Oh!" Lance blinks, then grins. "See, isn't that a good thing?"

Keith eyes him from between his fingers. "I don't know. Maybe it should have stayed forgotten."

"What should?"

Keith takes a deep breath, then takes his hands from his face.

"I remember last year's astronomy class. I remember... you. Us. What happened."

  
  



	7. Chapter 7

Keith watches the expression on Lance’s face change as he processes what he’d said. They flicker from the previous happiness to surprise, to worry, to fear slowly building in those wide blue eyes. He almost wishes he didn’t say anything.

“How much?”

“What?”

“How much of what happened do you remember?” Lance asks, fists clenching tightly against the wood on the picnic table.

Keith closes his eyes, unwilling to see the pain in the other boy’s face. He didn’t want things to happen like this. He’d hoped the past could just stay where it was, in the past. But ignoring it just makes it even more persistent to show up in the present.

A headache starts to form behind his eyes as he recalls the moments where his memory had started to return, and he squeezes them shut.

“Pretty much all of it.”

 

* * *

 

The first time Keith had a memory return to him, he’d been making toast in the middle of the night, just hours after his mental breakdown in Lance’s arms.

He’d thrown himself into his room, leaving a surprised and concerned Lance in the hallway. A headache had started to form in the back of his head, and he’d written it off as a result of all the crying he’d done. 

It hadn't faded after his shower or taking painkillers, though. In fact it had only seemed to increase over time, and he couldn't figure out why. There'd been something sitting at the back of his mind, and it'd bugged and bugged at his thoughts throughout the night, until finally it snapped, right as the toaster popped. Keith had fallen to the floor, just barely muting his scream of agony as flashes of what could only be a memory flickered in his mind's eye, and he'd pressed his forehead to the cool tiles of the kitchen.

 

_ He's ripping open a letter, in a big brown envelope. Shiro's name falls from his lips in a yell as he reads the acceptance message from his college on the top most page. He's being embraced by his brother and the two of them are yelling and dancing around excitedly. _

_ He's reading the letter over and over again. It's a big deal - this is the college where Shiro works, which was a fairly difficult college to get into. And he'd made it. He reads over the courses that he's enlisted in and the excitement fades as he sees the two-year financial business course that takes up the biggest part of his studies. _

_ Shiro reads it too and goes quiet. He leaves the room and Keith listens at the shouting match start up behind him, as Shiro argues over his parent's meddling in his younger brother's study choices. Beneath the dreaded course, however, are four more courses that are various duration lengths. _

**Introduction to Astrology -  September 2016 - December 2016**

**Advanced Languages - (Japanese) - September 2016 - June 2018**

**Advanced Math - 2 year supplementary course 2016-2018**

**Photography Studies - 2 year part-time course 2016-2018**

_ Keith relaxes a little at the sight of two of his selected optional courses, Astrology and Photography. His foster parents might be strict with him, and he might hate them a little for it, but at least he had some classes to look forward to. _

That memory had been from just before he’d entered college, just a few months ago. He could barely process it at first, since his head continued to hurt and it took all his energy to stand up again and rescue the burning toast. 

He'd figured it out as he went to sleep that night, and his first reaction was to be relieved. The doctors had said to him that it was very possible that he'd get his memories back, but they hadn't said when. Just that it would return in little pieces.

He'd smiled at first, but eventually it calmed down as he'd begun to analyse why he'd started having a memory. There hadn't been a lot that could've triggered it, and with nervous chews on his lip he'd realised that being embraced with Lance after his breakdown had been extremely relaxing, and that was a possible cause. The doctors had told him he'd need to be relaxed and open to the memories returning to encourage his mind to remember them.

 

The second and third memory flashes were close together, and not far along the timeline after the first one. He'd been a month or so into college.

 

_ "Hey, you're in my Astrology class, right?" A chipper voice startles him out of his daze over his coursework. The tanned hand on his shoulder is warm and light, as if the owner wasn't sure how to handle him. He looks up to see messy chocolate hair, bright blue eyes and a shy smile. "Is that the homework you're working on?" _

_ Keith glances down at his textbook and notes, which are in fact for Astrology. He looks back up at the other boy's hopeful expression. _

_ "I'm Lance," he lifts his hand to offer a handshake, which Keith accepts warily. "Do you mind if I borrow the textbook while we're both here? I missed the last class." _

_ "Keith, and I guess so..." Keith doesn't understand why he lets the strange boy take a seat next to him, but he slides the textbook between them and enjoys the fact that the stranger doesn't talk more than necessary, only asking where to read from. _

 

_ A day or two later, maybe. He feels someone kick the back of his chair, and he ignores it. It happens a couple more times. He scoots forward, out of reach. He hears a huff of irritation, and hopes that whoever was doing it will stop. _

_ They don't -- he hears them try and almost fall off their chair. He stifles a laugh as the teacher barks out a "Rivera! Stop messing around!" and continues the lesson. A note hits the back of his head a minute later. He picks it up from where it'd landed by his foot. _

**_Are you made of space bc your butt is out of this world. -  Lance_ **

_ Keith chokes on air so loudly that the teacher shouts at him next, and at Lance again for laughing too loudly. _

 

The thing is, as more and more memories filtered in, Keith had started to realise that he and Lance had been... close. Only during their Astrology course, perhaps, but enough that Keith would have been happy to consider him a friend. They'd compete over their homework and test results, argue over theories and aliens and deep space, everything. He'd liked Lance's company, but had been reluctant to see him outside of class time or their shared self-study hour. Not that Lance hadn't attempted asking before. Keith had had to brush him off several times, apparently. His memories included several declining statements to the eager boy, and each time Lance's expression at the rejections would become a little clearer: disappointment, smile dimming, a short nod and a goodbye wave. Maybe a 'catch you in class, nerd' as he'd leave.

 

Keith still couldn't remember why he'd say no to him.

 

The catalyst for Keith's memories of Lance was towards the end of the Astrology course. They'd had a week left, and attendance wasn't required anymore so long as the work was handed in on time. They'd skipped one of the classes together, intent on powering through the work and helping each other out to get it done quickly. Lance had talked about going out to celebrate somewhere together, shyly grinning and Keith had known in an instant what the  _ thing _ between he and Lance suddenly was.

 

_ "I-I can't, I'm sorry." Keith blurts, cutting Lance off from finishing his list of suggestions for the two of them. Granted, he hadn't really said many of them to begin with, but Keith sees it in Lance's expression once more - hurt, sadness, acceptance. _

_ "Right. Okay. Sorry." Lance brushes a hand through his short locks, and picks up his stuff. "Well! I think I'm done, so I'm just gonna...." he trails off to clear his throat and take a deep breath. "Go hand this in, I guess. See ya, Keith." _

_ Keith doesn't get a chance to reply as the other teen leaves the library abruptly. He sets his head in his hands and groans. Footsteps head towards him and he wonders if he'll get told off by the librarian for being loud. _

_ "So, something you wanna tell me about?" Shiro grins at him, eyebrows wiggling. "You've been hanging out with that boy for a while now." _

_ "Shiro!  I don't know what you're on about." _

_ Shiro sits where Lance was just moments ago. "That's the guy from your Astrology course, right? The one who sent you those space related pick up notes?" _

_ Keith makes another groaning noise, and this time Shiro does shush him. _

_ "His name's Lance." Keith mumbles. "And I'm not going to see him probably ever after this week is done." _

_ "Because of you, from the sounds of it. He was trying to ask you out!" Shrio nudges him. Keith shoves him back. _

_ "I don't want him to!" Keith growls back. _

_ "Why not? You clearly like him back!" _

_ "God, not like that." Keith snorts, though it's all for show. "He's alright to talk to in class, and sometimes he's so dumb, talking about all the aliens that could exist in space without us ever knowing, and acting so carefree and without worry. He doesn't work hard on anything until right before it's due in!" _

_ He doesn't say out loud that he loves talking to Lance. That he loves all of Lance's alien stories, and how they make him laugh. He likes that Lance makes him relax by being relaxed himself, with his head on straight and confident in himself and his future, like nothing will take that away from him, whilst Keith is barely making passing grades in a course he hates. _

_ "Keith, surely that's not a deal breaker-" _

_ "H-he can be annoying too! Always talking! Or throwing notes at me, getting me in trouble with the teacher!" _

_ "Keith-" _

_ "I can’t focus like this! I need to pass these classes, or else my overall grades will drop, and our parents will get mad. I need to study more and he’s always distracting me-" _

_ What is he saying?? He can't stop the nervous babble coming from his mouth, and it only makes his anxiety grow as he realises that Shiro isn't even looking at him anymore, but over his shoulder. _

Oh.

_ Oh no. _

_ "I came to give you back the notes I took with me by accident." Lance says stiffly, voice quiet as he lifts a hand to drop a pile of papers apathetically on the table, and the soft thud makes Keith wince, a sick feeling building up in his stomach. "And to tell you that I really, really liked you. And me asking us to hang out all those times.. well, guess they were a mistake, huh." _

_ "Lance, no, it wasn't that--" _

_ "Forget it, Keith. I don't want to hear anything else out of your fucking mouth." Tears slip unbidden from Lance's eyes, and the two boys grow still in shock. Lance wipes his face quickly and adds, "Don't worry about having to 'be around' me anymore. I've got that covered. See you never." _

_ Lance gives a curt nod to Shiro as he walks past them, but otherwise doesn't look back at Keith's frozen figure. _

_ Lance doesn't show up to Astrology for the rest of the week. After the holidays pass, he almost completely vanishes off of Keith's schedule, no longer sitting near him in any of the  classes he has with him. He completely disappears from Keith's life. _

 

* * *

 

Keith looks up at the boy in front of him now  looking like he did back then , who's heart he'd broken, along with his own in the process. He watches Lance's face as he shakily talks through each little piece of memory he has of the two of them. Watches the pain pull the brunet's brows in tight, his nose wrinkle slightly and the hard bite of his lip. His eyes start to blur and he doesn't stop the tears flowing.

"I am so,  _ so _ sorry for all those things I said." Keith murmurs. He wipes his eyes with his sleeves, and he feels more tears replace them. "I never meant any of them. I panicked, I was struggling with my coursework and Shiro’s parents lecturing me all the time. I didn't want Shiro to start lecturing me too, about things like dating or the 'use protection' talk, or whatever weird tangent he'd go off on if he thought there'd be a chance of me liking someone. I knew he'd start doing that, and I was so stressed, so I said whatever came to mind, and none of it was true I promise,  _ I promise." _

He's full on crying again, his breath escaping him as he struggles to catch all the tears with his sleeves. Lance, surprisingly, stays silent, and doesn't move to comfort him like he had done the first time Keith broke down in front of him. It's shocking, and it's what stabs at Keith's fragile disposition the most, the fact that he'd hurt Lance enough to be denied the teen's comforting embrace. He hates how much he craves it now, how much he longs to be held by him. Knowing that Lance could have been his all this time, and how he'd pushed it all away so carelessly, makes his eyes sting even more. Memories are still missing, and Lance hasn't said anything yet, so for all he knows they could have spoken since and Keith is fucking everything up even more, but he's sure that that was what happened, and it scares him to think there's something else he doesn't know. His jaw aches with all of the sobbing he's doing, and he isn't sure he'll stop unless Lance does something to reply to him.

He feels Lance get off the bench after another minute of silence.

"I'll.. be right back."

Lance leaves him shuddering and hiccuping on the bench, and Keith can only nod, with his face hidden in his sleeves.

 

* * *

 

Checking his phone for the god-knows-how-many time in the space of an hour, and Keith is still where he'd been sat before, face curled into his arm on the bench table as he waits for Lance to reappear from wherever he'd vanished to. He's starting to worry - okay, he's been worried from the second Lance limped away into the woods and was out of sight - and maybe he's more than a little scared. Everything the two of them had built up over the past couple of months... ruined. Because Keith got his memories back. Because he couldn't just keep his mouth shut and rekindle something new with Lance.

Lance.

Lance  _ knew _ Keith.  _ Knew _ that Keith had said all that horrible stuff and hurt him like that, and yet... he'd offered him an olive branch. A chance to restart... and Keith had thrown that all away by remembering. He doesn't deserve Lance's kindness, or his sweet smiles, or his laughter or his company at the shelter or hell, he doesn't even deserve Lance's  _ attention _ , let alone his forgiveness or friendship. He feels more tears build up in his sore and puffy eyes, and wills them away with a huff and harsh drag of his soggy sleeve over his eyes.

Lance returns as he's wiping his face dry. Keith watches him over the top of his arms, unsure if he's allowed to even look at Lance's vulnerable side. His eyes are red rimmed too, though not as puffy. His hair is a mess, and clothes are still muddy from his fall earlier.

Lance sighs. "Let's go back home, Keith."

Keith startles, sitting up. "What about what I said--"

"God, Keith, I really don't think either of us are in any kind of shape to talk about this right now!" Lance groans, unlocking his bike. He hoists up his backpack, already packed up by Keith during his absence, and moves it over to the trail, leaving Keith to unlock his bike by himself.

Lance is right, he supposes, Keith's a mess, Lance is a physical mess. Neither of them should be anywhere near each other right now. Talking in this kind of situation would be fuel to the fire.

They take the proper bike trail home. If Lance is cycling slow because of his injuries, then Keith is going slower, following slightly behind, unable to to bear being side by side with him. The trip is silent, up until they get all the way home and they're locking up the bikes in the shed.

"Keith."

He jerks at his name and turns to face Lance warily.

"Lance?"

"I accept your apology."

Eyes wide, he searches Lance's expression for any signs of trickery. There's none. The other boy looks weary, scratched up and drained, and it shows in his body language that he's tired.

"I mean, are you sure? I understand if you don't-"

"I said I accept it, not that I really believe it."

The words are harsh, but exactly what he'd been expecting.

"You barely have your memories. You have all the big parts, from what I understand, and now you're feeling guilty about hurting me. And because you're living with my family, and working at our shelter, you feel obligated to apologise for the past to make your present conscience feel better. But the truth is, with fractured memories like that, you don't really remember how those moments actually  _ felt _ , do you?"

Lance's ice blue stare pierces right through him as he hits the nail on the head. He's right - Keith only remembers the events, and how he thinks he'd felt back then, like he’s watching a movie in his mind. He remembers feeling regret, but not truly how regretful he'd been. He remembers the hurt, but can't quite recall how painful it was. These memories are being drowned out by his present guilt, present pain, and his eyes start to water again.

Lance's gaze softens as Keith cries a couple more silent tears. "Look, I don't want to be an asshole anymore. You really fucked me up, back then..." Lance murmurs, rubbing his arms. "But I liked being friends with you before all that happened. And I liked what we've been doing so far right now. Restarting as friends might have been a good idea. Obviously now that you remember me now might make things weird but... we can still carry on as friends if you want that."

"Really?" Keith blurts, surprised. "After everything I've done?"

"Are all you emos so dramatic?" Lance rolls his eyes with a sarcastic scoff, and it's the first time in hours that Keith sees the return of Lance's usual personality. "It won't be easy, but ‘fuck it YOLO’, am I right?"

Keith huffs. "Sure."

This wasn’t the perfect outcome Keith could have wished for. He wishes they could go back to being close again. Back to easy chatting and laughter. But he needs to take small steps first.


	8. Chapter 8

**> > Hey Shiro, you're online this late?**

**...**

**_< < Keith! Hey! _ **

**_< < I might have been rewatching all of Rick and Morty, haha._ **

**_< < What time is it for you? :O_ **

**> > Just after 7am, I guess**

**..**

**_< < Wow that's early! _ **

**_< < or..._ **

**_< < ...have you not gone to sleep yet?_ **

**> > No no I slept**

**> > I'm getting ready for work**

**..**

**...**

**_< < ..wow, when did you start that? That's awesome! _ **

**_< < what are you doing?_ **

**..**

**> > I'm helping out at the shelter the Rivera's on the weekends and some evenings.**

**_< < Ohh yeah, it's their family business, right?_ **

**> >...yeah.**

**_< < You're not getting too tired, right? With college too? And I know you stay up late to game with Pidge._ **

**> > I don't do that as often anymore. College is fine.**

**> > How are you, anyway? That's why I was messaging.**

**> >...How's your arm?..**

**..**

**...**

**..**

**_< < It's fine, Keith. It feels weird wearing it, I guess, but I'll get used to it. I'm only wearing it for 2-3 hours under supervision at a time right now. _ **

**_< < It's a slow process :/_ **

**> > I'm sorry...**

**..**

**_< < Keith, stop it already._ **

**_< < I've never blamed you._ **

**..**

**> > I know....**

**_< < Ignore what Mum and Dad say ok? They weren't there, they don't get to push the blame on you. _ **

**_< < It was an accident and that's all._ **

**..**

**...**

**_< < Keith?_ **

**..**

**.**

**> > ...Sorry, was getting dressed. I have to get to the shelter for eight.**

**_< < Right. Rivera's Wayward Strays, correct?_ **

**> > Yeah?**

**_< < Lance Rivera, wasn't he..._ **

**> >....Yeah. **

**> > I finally remembered him, by the way.**

**_< <...!!_ **

**> > Yep, memories have been coming back **

**> > its making things awkward.**

**..**

**_< < ...You'll be fine, Keith._ **

**> > Whatever.**

**> > You should get some sleep, idiot. It's almost midnight.**

**..**

**_< < Alright, Nurse Keith. Speak spoon baby bro xxxx_ **

**> > Sleep well xx**

  
  
  


Keith heads over to the shelter feeling a little better than before, thanks to the quick check-up on Shiro. Since the cycling incident, as he'd named it in his head, he hasn't really had a chance to be alone with Lance for long periods of time anymore, and he isn't sure if it's a good thing. The reason being is that the shelter has been steadily been filling up with pregnant cats and dogs and abandoned baby animals.

Any and all staff that can drive have been out seizing strays and orphans from where they can, and the shelter had met full capacity quicker than Keith could've blinked, and suddenly they're advertising for volunteers and weekday staff to help cover whilst the younger staff were at college. 

Lance has been swept off his feet with organising volunteering and fostering events, holding classes in one of the bigger event rooms of the shelter and teaching people how to care for pregnant cats and dogs, as well as how to bottlefeed neonates to the more experienced fosterers. 

It's amazing to see how much work Lance puts into this shelter, Keith thinks as he makes his way into the reception area, where already a crowd is forming in anticipation to a class. Several have carriers with them, ready to take cats and dogs home with them to foster. Kacey's reception desk is a hive of chatter, and both Peggy and Abel are surrounded by people, finalizing background checks and routine paperwork to ensure that these people are qualified to take care of animals.

Keith heads towards the back, where he knows Lance is waiting. He'd let him know at dinner the previous night that he was going to teach him how to look after the orphaned kittens, and to get there on time before Lance had to start giving classes.

Lance already looks tired when he gets to the designated kitten care room in the back, separate from the older cats due to quarantine. He straightens up and gives him a tired smile as he enters, and waves him over. 

"Alright we're gonna get straight into it, I've got an hour and a half to teach you one-on-one before the volunteers get here." He starts to set up the table and some chairs, and before he knows it Keith is thrown in the deep end with bottle feeding and excrement stimulation. He learns fast, how to hold squirmy babies, how to coax them to pee and poop like a mother would, how to check for any health problems, how to encourage kittens to latch onto the bottle and feed as naturally as possible. It's...an amazing thing, really. Especially once they start to suckle properly, he thinks - they start to knead the air like they would on a mother's stomach, and sometimes their tiny little ears twitch back and forth in the cutest way. He glances up at Lance, in awe, and flushes a little at the soft expression the other teenager has on his face as he feeds the kitten he has on his own lap.

He's tired, clearly strung-out, definitely stressed with how busy the shelter's becoming, but... right this second, he looks so at peace. The kitten mewls loudly on his lap and his attention is shifted once more. They go through a litter of five by the time the first volunteer knocks and enters the room. 

"Hi, I'm Mackenzie? For the bottlefeeding volunteer job?" She grins, flicking her blonde hair over her shoulder. She looks barely sixteen. Behind her, a couple more young girls are peeking in, glancing between the pens full of cats and kittens and the two boys.

"Right! I'm Lance - but y'all know that. I'll be right with you." The brunet grins, then turns to help Keith finish cleaning up from the litter they'd fed. "Alright, Keith - I think you're pretty pro at this, so if you want you can carry on with these pens on your own." Lance taps two small temporary crates, each holding 2 or 3 orphaned kittens each, snuggled up to heartbeat imitating plushies and heating disks. "If you're stuck you're welcome to ask for help, but don't worry about rushing them."

"Okay.." Keith trails off as Lance gives him a quick thumbs up and a pat on the shoulder as he bounces over to the growing group of volunteers. They're mostly students, from what he can guess, and all but two are girls, batting their eyes at Lance with smiles and giggles. Even the boys - they focus attentively on the older guy with nervous smiles. Judging from Lance's reaction to them, they're likely regular volunteers... and maybe not just because they like animals. They're giving him looks too, but he isn't sure what they think of him behind their careful smiles, so he concentrates on the kittens that need him the most right now. 

It’s a quiet affair on his side of the room, feeding and cleaning small helpless lives. It would be soothing, were it not for the bursts of laughter on the other side of the room, where the girls laugh loudly to whatever Lance says. He’s loving the attention, apparently; grinning and chattering away. At least the guys were working diligently - one had even wandered over to help him with his collection of kittens. 

An hour or so later and the girls seem to have finished their jobs, leaving the room to move on with their days. They call out allsorts of goodbyes, waving and giggling at Lance before ducking away through the doors. The guys with Keith finished a few minutes before, with polite, friendly goodbyes to the dark-haired teenager as they left. Keith has about 10 seconds of awkward silence with the other boy in the room before said boy yawns and stretches.

“And that was just the  _ first _ class…” He groans. “Today is gonna be busy…” 

“What else do you have today?” Keith asks curiously.

“There’s feeding these guys every three hours, so I’ve got some time until the next class….and the puppies too… I’ve got Dion on the dog classes at least… but I’ve got lots of applications to read through too…” 

“Can I…?”  _ Can I help? _ The question seems to die on his tongue as Lance already begins to shake his head. 

“Nah, it’s fine. You’re fine…” Lance yawns again. “Can I ask you to start the regular feeds though? I’ll handle meds but all the old bowls and stuff…”

“Yeah! Sure.”

Lance looks relieved at Keith's easy answer, and that's all the motivation he needs to get to work. It's smooth sailing from there, the two of them working harmoniously together to get the work done. It's relaxing now that there's just the two of them working together in the cramped, slightly overfilled room, the chirps, purrs and mewls of cats and kittens masking the quiet content between them. It feels like the time moves quicker than normal as another hour and a half of feeding and cleaning passes, this time ending with the two of them in the laundry room, folding the clean towels.

"Can I leave you to finish these while I go get some paperwork done?" Lance asks after a moment. "It's just- I-I mean, laundry doesn't  _ need _ two people, so-"

"Chill, Lance, I can fold some towels and blankets." Keith snorts, leaning over to elbow the brunet. "Get yourself a coffee too, you look a little dead on your feet."

Blue eyes widen at him and he hears a gasp. "Rude! My complexion is flawless!"

It makes him laugh a little. "Get outta here already, Rivera."

"That's  _ Boss  _ to you." Lance sniffs, throwing a warm towel over Keith's head as he wanders past him. "Coffee does sound good though... Later Keith."

"Later."

Keith's work is definitely quieter after that. The business of the shelter never quiets, but much like at college, the masses seem to leave him alone. Which he's fine with - he's not knowledgeable enough to get involved or answer curious questions, so all he can do is feed animals, clean up, walk dogs, fold laundry. Broken only by the half-hour he takes for lunch, the pattern continues throughout the day, and he notices something that starts to make his stomach coil unpleasantly.

_ Lance. _

_ Lance. _

_ Lance. _

He's always looking for Lance.

Lance who smiles warmly at every single face he encounters in the day. Grinning and laughing and joking with everyone. Polite and confident and cheesy, throwing in the occasional bad joke that has a surprising amount of people laughing - he's definitely in his element. He works with everyone, trying to give them all equal attention, even Keith, despite knowing that he's fine on his own. He checks up on them all as they work and touches shoulders lightly, pats arms and adjusts hands. So touchy. So smiley. It's like he's flirting with them all.... and Keith shudders when he realises he's thinking exactly like the girls he hears gossiping.

It's not like he's like them _ exactly _ ... unlike them, he knows that Lance is just being himself. He's not flirting, he's... just being kind. Open. Friendly. Himself. He knows how to get people to let loose and feel more like themselves in new environments. It's exactly why Keith got along with him before, and gets along with him now.

Except Keith hardly ever has time with him now.  He's so busy... he feels guilty just thinking about wanting to take up some of Lance's rare free time. Remembering how close they used to be must be messing with his thoughts, because now all he can think about is going back to being that close. To talking together after classes, studying together... and now working together and eating dinner together,  _ and and and - _ he just keeps thinking of 'ands' to add to the list, like mindless repetition, and still he wants more.

He hears the girls talk amongst themselves about asking Lance if he's single. Or if he'd consider dating them despite still being in high school. Or if he'd like to 'hang out' sometime. He wants to know the answers to these things too, even if he means it in a slightly different way to them.

_ Are you dating anyone? _

_ Did you want to date me, back then? _

_ What about now? _

_ I want to know- _

_ -I don't want to know- _

_ I don't know what I want. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the second art piece!! So cute right? :D   
> go reblog it on [Nikkst3rz!](http://nikkst3rz.tumblr.com/post/169193413516/my-art-work-that-goes-along-with-call-me-kaii-s)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Small warning: its angst UwU

Keith isn't sure of how else to help out, so he does what he usually did at home: take over the chores. Lance's mum had been appreciative of the help when he'd offered it, so he took it as a good sign. With Keith doing Lance's household chores for him, he had a little more time to spend elsewhere, and the thankful look Lance had given him made it worth it.

He washes and folds laundry, he washes the dishes, he walks the household dogs. It's easy enough, as long as he doesn't help with the cooking. Even if Lance is tired he shoos the darker-haired teen away, stating that his mullet 'will just get in the way' with a laugh. He looks happy at his offers though, at least.

The thing is, it doesn't feel like enough. He tries helping out more at the shelter too - working quicker, more efficiently, feeding and cleaning the animals under his care. Today, he begins with the feeds of all the regular cats, and a bit more hesitantly, begins with the cats needing medication. Lance usually does these ones, but Keith knows that he refers to a sheet with the cats listed in order on it, somewhere...  _ Aha! _ A quick search in a drawer reveals a folder full of the papers, and he scans over them, looking for familiar names. He finds a few, and starts with the easiest-sounding ones. Some have weight measurements of powdered medications, which he skips over, and goes to the cats with pill medications. It'll be simple enough, he figures, to just crush a pill and mix it into cat food.

So that's what he sets out to do; lining up bowls of equal portions in a row and going down the sheet, finding the right pill to crush, sprinkle into the food, mix, and repeat. He gets through the first page quite easily, and gets ready to start dishing them out when Lance comes in.

He looks tired, and there are glasses on his face that Keith had never seen him wear before, but they smile hellos at each other anyway.

"Hey Keith. Thanks for starting before me." Lance grins happily. "I'll get the meds sorted and we can get to the babies."

"Oh, I um, started them for you." Keith shrugs, opening the first cage door. He's just sliding the bowl in when a hand shoots out to grab his wrist.

"You  _ what _ ." Lance's touch in cold on his skin and almost unbearably tight. He's yanking Keith's hand with the food bowl out of the cage quicker than he can blink.

"Fucking hell Lance-"

"Give me that!" Lance snaps, and Keith can't help but fall silent and let him take it, closing the cage door instead.

The brunet stomps up to the prep table, looking at the bowls set out on top of it and the medicine bottles spread across it. He's murmuring, and as Keith takes a step closer he speaks louder, shaking his head and repeating 'no' over and over.

"No no no, fuck Keith why the hell would you do this!" Lance growls, pulling at his hair with one hand. "All of this has to be thrown away. Shit." He starts to scrape the contents of the bowls into the bin and Keith speaks up at that.

"What?! Why? I portioned everything out like you do!"

"No you fucking didn't!" Lance snaps back. "These are their  _ old medications _ , Keith!"

Shocked, the boy in question falls silent.

"Did you even pay attention to the label on the folder? This was for  _ two months _ ago, idiot! You have no idea what's been changed since then!" Lance waves the folder around, slamming it back in the drawer it had sat in and searching for the correct one, which Keith guiltily recognises as the right one, despite being a similar colour to the one before. "And do you know what  _ else _ you did wrong, Keith?" Lance adds, still in a raging state.

"I don't kn-"

"The pill crusher, and the spoon you mixed these with!" Lance gestures to the table. "You clearly used the crusher without cleaning it between pills. You  _ mixed _ the medications, Keith, do you not realise how  _ dangerous _ that could have been?!"    
Lance continues like this for a few moments, talking about what could have happened to any one of the cats whose food he'd unknowingly poisoned. It hurts, hurts so much to realise what he's done. These animals that didn't do anything wrong could have gotten seriously sick because of the simplest of mistakes  _ he'd _ made. It shakes him up...  _ I keep messing up, dammit... _

“I think you need to take a break for today.” Lance says finally, heaving a deep sigh. He looks even more tired than before, and runs a hand over his face. “I get that you’re trying to help - really. But there’s reasons why I give you your jobs and leave certain ones for myself to do. There are so many important factors and-” He cuts himself off. “Just go home for today, Keith.”

Keith’s face burns with embarrassment, a lump in his throat making it impossible to do anything but nod silently in shame. He turns and all but sprints out of the room, the door exploding open to the group of waiting volunteers, who he assumes had been listening in on them.

“Keith!”

“Hey wait dude-”

“Lance! That was so mean-!”

He doesn’t hear the rest, picking up speed to run out of the shelter and back up the road. He runs straight back to the Rivera’s house, through the gate and front door, barely even registering the figure in the living room that might have been one of the twins, he doesn’t know. He skips up the stairs two at a time, swinging the bedroom door open and shut dangerously fast around him. He just wants to shut everything out so badly.

_ All you do is fuck things up, Keith. Stop putting other lives in danger already. _

 

A little while later his phone pings with a message and he jolts, stirring awake from his sudden nap. He hadn’t even realised he’d fallen asleep, face burrowed deep under the covers of the bed. A hand reaches out blindly for it until it finds purchase on the rectangular device and he checks it, seeing as it’s from Pidge.

 

**> >Yo, Skype? Vidya games? :3**

 

He checks the time. He fell asleep roughly half an hour ago, and he had a strong pulsing behind his eyes, like the start of a headache but he still had so much time to waste..It would certainly take up his new free time, at least.  _ And keep his mind off things. _

He sits up and shuffles over to his desk, switching his laptop on and pulling his headphones over his ears. A few minutes later and a blurry face appears in a box on his screen.

“Sup, nerd! Haven’t seen you online at this hour in a while!”

“Hey, Pidge..”

The blonde’s expression drops slightly. “Uh oh. What’s up?”

“I uh…” Keith isn’t sure he wants to talk about it again so soon so he shrugs. “Messed up at the shelter so Lance sent me back.”

“Oh.” Pidge looks surprised as he explains what had happened. “Well, I guess that makes sense… but hey, we can play some Overwatch now, how about that?”

He manages a smile at the younger teen. “Sure. Let’s play a warm-up match first.”

“Warm up matches are for puss-”   
“ _ Pidge _ !”

They cackle. “Sorry, not sorry.”

Keith rolls his eyes a little. At least Pidge’s terrible way of making him feel better hasn’t changed in the last few days. They fall into their typical pre-match chatter and tactic talk, planning their character choices and team line ups and how they want to play. It's doing a great job of distracting him, honestly. Keith and Pidge play a casual game before they go into competitive mode, which he's grateful for, considering it's been over a week since he's last had a chance to play seriously. The problem is he feels disconnected, and the pulsing headache feels stronger now, and it's messing with his performance in this current match.

"C'mon Keith, I need you on this side of the map already!"

"I'm o-on my way, tch-" He winces and rubs at his eyes when his character gets killed on the screen. Hold long had he just been standing there idle, again?

"Jeez, no wonder you wanted a practice match first, you've gotten terrible." Pidge cackles, but it sounds quieter than before. "I haven't seen you play this bad since you first bought the game."

"Yeah, I'm... not feeling good actually..."

Pidge looks up at where Keith knows his little video box is on the other teen's monitor, watches them lean in close to look at him.

"Yeah, you look a little shitty, actually. You ok?"

"I have a headache..." He groans and clutches his head again, curling forward towards his knees, headphones slipping off easily.

He barely hears Pidge shout at him over the ringing in his ears, the buzzing growing louder and louder until it stops, everything stops.

 

* * *

 

_ Keith recognises the scenery around him as the college campus. He’s under the trees, looking up at the sunlight filtering down onto the grass around him as he writes in his notebook, finishing up the business class notes with a heavy sigh. The course just gets worse with every lesson, and the stress of studying for something he hates makes him miserable. There’s nothing fun about this, this might be ‘useful’ but it’s nothing like what he wants to do in the future, anyway. He wants to stay here at this college where Shiro works, though… so he’ll just have to stick with it. _ _   
_ _ “Ah, young Keith!” A  vaguely familiar face approaches him. It’s one of the professors for his business course so he holds back a sigh as he stands up. Why can’t he catch a break today? _

_ “Hi Sir?” _

_ “Keith, I’m afraid I have bad news…” The teacher starts off carefully, hands smoothing down his shirt in awkward fashion. “There’s been some complications with your coursework.” _

_ “What?” _

_ “Your assignments have been dropping in grade significantly over the past couple of weeks, Keith, and while I’m sure you have your personal reasons, there is growing concern as to whether or not this course is the right one for you.” _

_ “I….” _

_ “Take a minute to get your thoughts together, but I would really like to have a proper meeting with you and your parents about your future, if that’s possible. Perhaps a change of course might be a good idea. Is there anything else you’re interested in? Give it some thought.” _

_ The teacher walks away again, but Keith hardly notices, slumping back to the ground again, shaking. This was all of his worst fears coming together all at once. He’s a failure - he can’t even keep up a passing grade like everyone else! It sucks!  _

_ They’re probably going to yell at him again… and Shiro will be so disappointed, in him and their parents for forcing this course on Keith… and if by some miracle he  _ can _ change his course, what would he even change it to? He doesn’t have any goals other than to earn money and live a good life out of reach of strict parents telling him what to do. And stay close with Shiro. And own a cat. He doesn’t want much, so is passing this damn course really too much to ask for?! _

  
  


* * *

  
  


"......th......"

"Ke.......ith....Keith!"

He's blinking awake to Lance snapping his fingers in his face, and he focuses on them as he wakes up.

"Lance?"

"Oh, okay, holy shit." Lance whispers raggedly. "Pidge, he's okay now, he's back."

"Thank fuck!" He hears Pidge call from his laptop, where he assumes Lance pulled the headphone cords out so that he could be heard from his position next to Keith on his bed. "I've gotta go, but make sure you take care of him, Lance! No buts, Keith!"   
“Wha-”

The teenager hangs up with a small ding of the laptop.

"Hey buddy." Lance smiles at him sadly. "How ya feelin'?"

_ My head hurts. My body aches. My heart is pounding uncontrollably because of the memory I just rediscovered- _

"....Thirsty, kinda."

He runs his hands through his hair as he sits up, allowing Lance a moment to grab the glass of juice from his desk. He thanks him with a mumble as he sips it.

"It's alright. It was only by chance I was coming to check on you, anyway." Lance goes quiet. “You’ve been unresponsive for a while, though. Even Pidge was a little worried.”   
“I’m sorry, I’m fine now-”

“Keith, you almost fell out your chair when I touched your shoulder.” Lance brushes a hand against Keith’s arm, showing him where he’d touched him and he flinches back.  _ Well crap, this didn’t happen before when his memories came back the last few times… then again, he’d been sleeping instead of, what, dissociating? Spacing out? _   
"I'm sorry for snapping at you earlier." Lance adds quietly when Keith forgets to respond.

"I’m the one who should be sorry." Keith shakes his head, wincing as the pain in his head spikes up at the movement. "I could have caused so much unnecessary pain to those cats-"

"-But you didn't, so it's fine, Keithers. You're my employee, I should have explained it better to you instead of just taking on the jobs on my own."

Lance reaches out, gently patting his thigh. "And you're my friend too, Keith. Friends don't yell at each other for their mistakes."

His head throbs at the words.  _ Friends.... _

"Even after everything I've said and done..." Keith shakes his head again, harsher than before.

The hand on his thigh squeezes down firmly, and he slows the shaking.

"Especially so. No one is perfect Keith, that's why we make friends with people who help us become better people."

Keith nods slowly. It's not that he doesn't think Lance's words are true, but... Keith's fucked up so much already. What was the point of trying anymore?

"Do you want to talk about what happened?" Lance asks quietly.

"No.."

"Are you sure? Or maybe Mam, she's a good listener-"

"I'm fine." Keith crawls back on the bed, away from Lance's touch. "I don't want to talk.”

"..Alright Keith." Lance's hand curls up into a first where it slumped onto the bed sheets. "I'll go see if dinner is ready soon, I’ll bring you up a plate when it is...”

Keith turns away as he leaves, wishing he couldn't see Lance's hurt expression every time he closes his eyes, but that wish isn't granted to him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry guys, I haven't had a lot of time to work on this, or any writing at all, but I'll try my best to finish this up soon! Only 1-2 more chapters left at most.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still alive, somehow.

Keith stays away from the shelter for a day, embarrassment gripping him tightly and refusing to let go. He keeps thinking about his most recent memory - his teacher telling him he was failing his classes. It's still true now - in the final half of the year, all of his teachers are eyeing him warily, the sighs and tuts reaching his ears even when he knows they shouldn't have. They were preparing for him to fail, repeat the year... or drop out. And since the accident... well, there was even less of a chance of him passing the course now. He has another meeting with the staff coming up in the week, to tell him how much work he needs to do to catch up again and pass with bare bones.

It's tiring.

He hates this course.

He drags himself downstairs for lunch, having avoided the Sunday morning chaos - and Lance - by staying up in his room, locked away in the dark. It's quiet in the house, likely because the twins are out on the farm, and the younger kids are out enjoying the nice weather too. They're all good people, he thinks. He hears the twins talking in their first language sometimes - Swedish? When it’s late at night or early in the morning and the rest of the house is quiet, they wander down the hallway, talking softly and laughing, enveloped in their own little bubble that only twins seem to have. Molly-Rose and Alex get along well, despite the fighting - he sees them working on their homework together in the dining room most nights. They bicker and argue and half the time it feels like they're not working together at all, but the homework gets done eventually and they still spend their time together after; either playing games or watching a movie in the living room. Keith wonders how these people get attached to each other so easily, despite not being related. The four of them - plus Lance - are pieces of a puzzle that seem to slide together with elegant finesse that the orphan can't even comprehend.    
He and Shiro were always close, but... not like these guys. They were family but these people are a home, too. A home full of love. Shiro loves him, he knows, but his parents... well they never cared enough to adopt him, did they? Lance's parents adopted him...

He shakes his head and goes into the kitchen, trying to clear his thoughts. There's noise from further down the hall, and a sleek black kitty runs into the kitchen meowing.

"Sooty!" A laughing voice follows it, and Lance's mother enters the kitchen. "Get your muddy paws back- Ah Keith! Catch that pesky kitten for me, will you?"

It's natural for him to respond to her request, bending and snatching up the quick little furball as it tries to dash past. They wriggling in his grip, protesting, until Mam takes them, wrapping them up in a big towel, wiping their paws firmly and with the ease of a pro.

"So..Sooty?" Keith finds himself asking curiously.

"Sooty's my kitten, yes." Julia Rivera, wonderful woman as she is, looks a picture of serene as she snuggles the cat in her arms. "I've been hand-feeding her since she was just a few days old."

"Oh... wow." Keith says simply, surprised and impressed. From what he knows of kitten care, she would have been working hard to to take care of her all day and night. "It must be difficult, right?"

"Oh, it is." She replies immediately with a soft laugh. "It's tough and can be so heartbreaking, especially if they get sick or die."   
Keith freezes silently.

"Kittens that have to be nursed at such a young age often fall ill for many reasons, it can't always be helped." Watching his expression, she smiles sadly. "Many die every day from overpopulation and the lack of care available to them. But for the lucky ones - like Sooty and many others we've rescued - they get a second chance at life."

_ A second chance...? _

"A fresh start." Julia adds, and Keith realises he'd spoken out loud. "Everyone deserves one of those, don't you think?"

"I..." Keith mumbles, faltering under her soft, calm gaze. It's as though she could see everything that's been bothering him lately, mind and thoughts on display for her to see. "I want that too." He says, surprising himself.

"You can have that." She tells him firmly, walking up to him slowly. As he watches her face, he can't see any hint of doubt in her expression. Just honesty and determination. She truly believes in him, doesn't she? She barely knows him, and yet..

"You can restart at any point in your life, Keith. As long as you're honest about what you want, and how you're going to work for it. If it doesn't hurt anyone you care about, then why not try something new?"

"I.. I don't what I want to do." Keith shrugs, looking down at his socked feet. He's still in his pajamas and he feels like he's gone back to being a child. It's a slightly different feeling though - he's not scared of being scolded, he's scared for himself, what he wants for his future.

"You'll figure it out." She assures him, pulling him towards her with one hand, tucking him into her side in a hug. It's surprising for a moment but so warm and safe... he can't help but lean into her and hug back tightly, careful of the kitten purring loudly between them.

"Thank you..." Keith whispers into her shoulder.

"Of course Keith, anytime." She lets him go after a moment, adjusting the kitten bundle in her other arm. "If you can excuse me, though, I need to get back to giving this naughty one a bath."

"Ah.. sure.. thanks again."

"I'll see you at dinner." She smiles again, then heads back out and down the hallway, leaving Keith alone with his thoughts again.

 

* * *

 

Dinner was awkward and quiet at his end of the table.

Keith couldn't bring himself to speak up or join in the conversations with the others, not with Lance at his side chirping away and carrying most of the talking, and Keith still feels pretty bad. Lance tries catching his eyes occasionally, quirking a small half-smile at him once or twice in between chatters. Keith follows him into the kitchen afterwards, aiming to help scrape up off the plates and wash them. Lance is filling up the sink with hot soapy water, humming along to the radio he’d turned on in a spare moment.

“Can I help?” he finds himself asking quietly. Lance looks up at him in surprise, hands dripping soapy bubbles.

“...Sure?”

He nods, slightly awkwardly, before heading for the stacks of dishes and starting to scrape the scraps into the bin. It quiet for a good few moments, save for the radio and scraping of cutlery on plates as Keith does his task, before Lance’s humming picks up again, and the tension in Keith’s shoulders melts away a little.

“I’m sorry, again, about before Lance..” Keith says quietly, stacking the last plate next to the sink, where the brunet had started taking them one-by-one to wash and scrub in the hot water. He shuffles over to Lance’s other side, picking up a tea towel and drying the plates that were drip-drying in the rack, figuring… well, it’d be quicker to put them back into their places if he dries them straight away. 

“Don’t worry about it anymore, Keith, it’s fine.” Lance bumps a shoulder against him playfully. “The cats are alright, nothing happened.”

Keith’s shoulders droop in relief at that, and he realises he’d still been worried about them too, amongst all his troubling memory flashbacks and coursework problems. It’s good to know that at least he hadn’t caused any more permanent trouble.

“Not just that…” Keith adds cautiously. “Just… in general. Since I’ve been here. I know I haven’t been the best guest. I don’t want to use the accident as an excuse. I want to fix things - get better.”

The teenager next to him doesn’t respond right away, and Keith keeps his eyes trained on the plate he’s drying. He wipes it over and over, long after it’d already dried, until Lance hands him a new plate to dry.

“I’m glad that you’re figuring yourself out.” Lance says simply, giving him a small little smile that has Keith’s heart doing crazy things.  _ It’s not fair,  _ he thinks,  _ Lance looks impossibly cute even when he’s tired. _ He’s running out of reasons as to why he shouldn’t think of Lance in that way.

“It might take a while…” Keith sighs, thinking back to Lance’s mother’s words about helping a little life get a new start, and can’t feeling as though he was like those kittens - needing someone else’s help to get through his problems. 

“One day at a time.” Lance murmurs back carefully, surprisingly wise.

“...Right.”

 

* * *

 

Keith heads out of the teacher’s lounge the following Monday afternoon. His eyes sting, and his sleeves are damp, but it had been a good, honest talk for once and his teachers actually cared about his thoughts. His ‘parents’ had been called too - though they’d been less than pleased given the time difference and the fact that Keith was no longer under their care; another talk he’d hated being a part of. 

It had confirmed what he'd been avoiding - Shiro's parents weren't planning on fostering him again. From what he'd understood of the call, they were planning on living in the US with Shiro until he recovered completely and had no interest in allowing Keith to join them or see his 'brother' again. It hurts, it hurts so much to be kicked out like this by people he once thought had cared about him, but he can’t bring himself to cry about it anymore, he’d already done enough of that lately. 

As he walks down the halls he realises that he can't go anywhere without Lance, who was still in his final class of the day. He hesitantly sends him a text.   
  
**> > Hey, when does your class finish? I'm out early...** ****  
**...** ****  
**< < Hey!! I'm in Animal Biology RN, swing by the Animal Care department, there's benches outside my room you can sit n wait on!** **  
** **> > OK**

**< < :3!!**

 

He laughs a little at the cat face, then takes his time walking over, knowing Lance still has at least half an hour of class left anyway. 

It's a quiet walk, from the main building to the animal care centre. The buildings only had a couple of classrooms, whilst the rest housed many types of animals in different sections depending on the species of animals, from what he knew. There were stables and a couple fields of farm animals too, around the back of the building.

Keith sees Lance in one of the large windows as he approaches, his back to the glass as he stands up at his desk, waving his arms around as he talks about something to his classmates, drawing their attention to him easily. There’s some sort of powerpoint presentation on the projected screen at the front of the room, and to Keith it seems as though Lance was answering some questions based on it. 

Finding the benches in the grassy fenced garden area outside the Animal Care building, he slides his bag down on the seat next to him as he slumps over on the grainy wood. It feels odd, sitting alone outside a classroom full of other students that can clearly see him, some of the girls meet his eyes occasionally and he has to awkwardly glance away. 

Lance spots him a moment later too, lifting a hand and wiggling his fingers at him slyly while the teacher’s distracted. Keith watches him pull his phone out of his pocket and type.

 

**< < We’re learnin’ about genetics!! :3**

**..**

**> > Oh, sounds cool.**

**< < It is!!! **

 

Keith sees Lance almost drop his phone as the teacher yells at him, presumably to pay attention, and grins at the sheepish expression on Lance’s face as his classmates laugh with him. They seem fun, Keith thinks. Lots of people are talking and taking part in the class, probably being disruptive as well as helpful when answering questions, but everyone looks like they’re having fun and they’re all writing notes as the teacher talks… it looks so much more interesting and entertaining than the stiff silence his business classes had always seemed to have been, nothing but the drone of his teachers and the shuffling and sighing of his classmates.

He tries to pay attention a little to what he can see of the powerpoint, though he’s too far away to read any of the text on it, and soon he finds himself shutting his eyes and resting his head on his arms as he waits. Sometimes he sees Lance when he opens them again, writing away in his notebooks  or answering questions and it’s… nice to see this side of him again. The serious, studious Lance that somehow enjoys his classes and Keith remembers feeling a tinge of jealousy when he used to talk about it during their study sessions.

 

Lance’s class finishes a little while later, and the teen himself is the one poking Keith on the head to wake him up.

“Let’s go, Sleeping Beauty.” 

The way back home is quiet in the best way - there’s no tension or awkwardness. Lance is humming to a song on the radio and Keith doesn’t feel any need to fill in the silence between them. After the kind of day he’s had at college, it’s nice to not have anything expected of him.

“Can we go see the cats again?”

Lance looks at him, brief surprise vanishing with a small smile instead.

“Sure, but if you’re ready to head back, you’re going to be put to work.”

“Okay.” He feels ready for it now.

And he is. It's madness in the shelter from the moment they walk in but it's good and familiar to him by now. They fall into rhythm with the others, feeding and cleaning and stopping to pet some of the cats as they work. Keith marvels at how big some of the kittens have grown in the short time he's been away and he has to resist the urge to pick them all up and squeeze them. It's rewarding work and they get a lot done in just an hour between them.

“I'm being let go from my business course.” Keith says suddenly. He isn't sure why he starts talking as they finish cleaning up for the session, but it does catch Lance’s attention.

“Oh.” Lance stands up from his previous crouched position. “What for?”

“I was… failing it. I wasn't going to pass the year. Even my other teachers are barely supporting me.”

“What the…?” Lance looks surprised, as though the idea of him failing is shocking. “Is there nothing you can do?”

“They suggested I try again next year, with a different course.”

The brunet nods, “I guess that's something. Are you going to do that?”

“I don't know…. I don't have anything I want to really do.”

“Well… you have a job here with us.” Lance shrugs, grabbing a broom and starting to sweep the floor.

“Wait, really?”

“I mean, yeah, if you still want to work here.” Lance isn’t looking at him, just sweeping in the corners to a little pile in the middle. “You still need money right?”

“I do, but…”

He trails off, not really sure what to say. He’s not exactly qualified to work with animals, but he’s been working for them for a couple months and kind of knows what to do, and he did like it sometimes… 

“There’s nothing wrong with staying with a job because you like it. You shouldn’t study or work at something you hate just because others tell you to. You have a good opportunity to do something else now you know?”

“I’ll be repeating a year, though… that’s going to be weird.”

“It’s fine, a bunch of people do. Nothing wrong with it.”

“I’ll be nineteen and have to pay for some of it..”   
“I’m pretty sure you qualify for financial aid, and that’s what this job is for, right?”

“Stop answering all my insecurities so easily.”

Lance laughs at that, which makes his heart flutter and his frown twist slightly. “Keith, it’ll be fine. You’re not as hopeless as you might think.”

“Thanks.” Keith drawls slightly, unable to stop the small smirk on his lips as he rolls his eyes. 

“Go out and look at a few things that might interest you, figure yourself out, you don’t have to take those exams now right? Use that time.”

“I guess… stop being so wise, it’s creepy.” 

“Rude!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey Guys I really hope you take a moment to read this.
> 
> Basically, 2018 has been probably the most emotional year of my life so far. I'm gonna say now TRIGGER WARNING. It's has its very large ups and downs, I met my long distance partners, we broke up.. I was falling into depression and was officially declared with it this week after going to a psychologist and telling her about considering suicide. seriously, a lot of things have happened and this is the first time (06/09/18) I have actually tried writing since JANUARY. this chapter was already mostly pre-written from that time, I just added a little bit at the end. It still feels really weird to try and write after so long, plus I've been in a lot of RP servers the past 9 months and the writing style is super different, haha.   
> little steps at a time.  
> I'm gonna hopefully update some other fics too, so keep an eye out. Thanks for sticking with me.

**Author's Note:**

> Please don't take any art you see in this fic, if you wanna give it a reblog you can find it on the artist's tumblr -
> 
>  
> 
> [Nikkst3rz!](http://nikkst3rz.tumblr.com/post/169193413516/my-art-work-that-goes-along-with-call-me-kaii-s)


End file.
